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Authors: Chris Enss

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BOOK: The Doctor Wore Petticoats: Women Physicians of the Old West
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Allen divided his time between working his claim, running his office, and traveling to visit his wife and two children. Once Nellie received her license, she assumed full control of the growing California practice. She outfitted the office with her own equipment, which featured the best, most up-to-date products available.
Her patients made themselves comfortable in a grand red velvet chair, fitted with a porcelain bowl on a stand, an aspirator, and a holder for a crystal water glass. The drills she used were the most sophisticated on the market. It was powered by a treadle, which worked like a flywheel as it was pumped. A large wooden cabinet in the corner of the room held medieval-looking dental tools and leather-bound copies of
The Principles and Practice of Dental Surgery
and
Gray’s Anatomy Descriptive and Surgical.
As the only dentist in a wide range of northern California, Nellie’s dental practice was in high demand. She was recognized by most in the community as a qualified doctor who always made her patients feel at ease. Nellie continued to practice dentistry until her death in 1906. She was fifty-nine when she passed away.
 
DR. NELLIE POOLER CHAPMAN’S WEDDING PORTRAIT
 
 
DR. NELLIE POOLER CHAPMAN ATTENDS TO A PATIENT IN THE DEN OF HER HOME.
 
While Nellie Pooler Chapman was carving out a place for herself in history as the first licensed dentist in the West, Lucy Hobbs Taylor was making a name for herself as the first woman in the world to earn a Doctorate of Dental Science degree.
Born on March 14, 1833, in Franklin County, New York, Lucy Beaman Hobbs’s interest in medical studies began at an early age. Her mother and father were killed when she was twelve years old. The ten children they left behind were forced to fend for themselves to stay alive. Although times were difficult, Lucy rarely missed a day of school, and helped support her family by working as a seamstress.
After graduating in 1849, she relocated to Michigan and took a job as a schoolteacher. Her desire was to become a doctor, but at the time, there was a very narrow range of occupations deemed socially acceptable for women. She decided to remain in the more traditional role of teacher until she could afford to challenge the world’s conventional view of working women, and until she had enough money to apply to medical college.
In 1859, she sought admission to the Eclectic College of Medicine in Cincinnati, but was denied entrance because of her gender. Struck by her tenacity and drive, one of the professors at the college offered to give her private lessons in general medicine. At his suggestion she entered the field of dentistry.
Dental schools required students to serve two years as an apprentice with a licensed dentist before entering college. Lucy struggled to find a doctor of dental science who would grant her the opportunity to learn from him. Doctor Jonathan Taft, the dean of the Ohio College of Dental Surgery, permitted her to work in his practice while she continued her search for a place to apprentice.
After a year-long search, a graduate of the school offered her an apprenticeship. Upon completion of her private studies, she applied to Doctor Taft’s alma mater. Once again she was turned down because she was a woman.
Rejection only made Lucy that much more determined to pursue her goal. The long hours she had invested poring over medical books and the practical experience she had gained at Doctor Taft’s office, pulling teeth and making dentures, made her confident that she could do the job. With nothing more than drive and belief in her abilities, she decided to open her own practice. At the age of twenty-eight, she hung out her own shingle in Cincinnati. From 1861 to 1865, Lucy had dental practices in Ohio and Iowa. She was known by the Native Americans in both locations as “the woman who pulls teeth.”
 
ALTHOUGH SHE WAS AT FIRST REJECTED FROM DENTAL SCHOOL, LUCY HOBBS TAYLOR SUCCESSFULLY BECAME THE FIRST WOMAN TO RECEIVE A DOCTORATE OF DENTAL SCIENCE.
 
Her reputation as a quality dentist spread throughout the Midwest. Her male counterparts respected her perseverance and dedication to the profession. She was so well liked by her peers that they made an appeal to the American Dentists Association to allow her to attend dental school.
In November of 1865, Lucy was admitted into the Ohio College of Dental Surgery. The five years she had spent in private practice and the experience she had acquired as an apprentice prior to that allowed her to enter the school as a senior. When Lucy graduated on February 21, 1866, she became the first woman to receive a Doctorate of Dental Science degree.
Not long after graduation, Doctor Lucy Hobbs moved to Illinois and opened another practice in Chicago. It was here that she met James W. Taylor, a Civil War veteran and railroad maintenance worker. The two fell madly in love, and in April of 1867 they were married in front of a few friends and family members. That same year, Lucy and James moved to the western town of Lawrence, Kansas, where James had a job working in the rail yards. Tired of the long hours and physical strain of manual labor, James sought out another profession. Lucy suggested dentistry and her husband agreed. James studied under his wife until he was able to get his license. Together, the Taylors had a large, successful practice.
In addition to her business, Lucy was involved in a number of political and civic causes. She served on the state dental society as well as school and library boards, and she campaigned for women’s rights. Her efforts made it possible for many women to enter the field of dentistry. She cited the open-mindedness the new frontier possessed for allowing such progress to be made, and in 1892 wrote:
I am a New Yorker by birth, but I love my adopted country—the West. To it belongs the credit of making it possible for women to be recognized in the dental profession on equal terms with men.
 
 
Doctor Lucy Hobbs Taylor retired from her practice in 1886, but remained active in her community until her death in October of 1910. She was seventy-seven years old.
MARY CANAGA ROWLAND
 
LEARNED PRACTITIONER
 
 
My father always said his girls were just as smart as his boy, and
my husband said I was as capable as any man . . . All these ideas
made me believe in myself and made me think I could do
something worthwhile in the world.
—Mary Canaga Rowland, 1932
 
 
Two well-dressed men with pistols holstered to their sides crossed the dusty thoroughfare of Herndon, Kansas. Through the wavering heat and stabbing glare of sunlight, Doctor Mary Canaga Rowland watched the pair check to make sure their six-shooters were loaded. “This office is about to get busy,” she said to herself as she watched the men square off against a couple of ranch hands standing in front of the telegraph office.
Mary couldn’t hear what the men were saying, but she could tell they were arguing. The quarrel quickly turned violent. One of the ranch hands reared back to throw a punch, but was stopped dead in his tracks by a bullet. The second ranch hand was just as quickly gunned down. The gunmen fled, firing their pistols in the air as they rode off. One of the injured men was carted off to the hotel and the other was delivered to Doctor Rowland.
The doctor’s patient was covered in blood and writhing in pain. Mary tore the faded blue shirt away from the wound so she could begin the examination. Once the saturated material was removed, she began soaking up the blood with strips of material. The bullet had gone through the man’s forearm and struck his suspender buckle, leaving an egg-sized lump just below his heart.
As Mary started dressing the piercing, the ranch hand pulled his arm away from her. “You’re a lady doctor,” he said incredulously. Mary stared down at him and offered a partial smile. “I know what you’re thinking,” she said. “Every man to his trade, but every woman to the washtub, right?” The ranch hand merely groaned. “I could just let you bleed to death,” Mary added. He could tell she was serious and didn’t resist as she gently lifted his injured arm onto a fresh sheet.
After Mary finished dressing the man’s wounds and treating him for shock, he drifted off to sleep. In time he made a full recovery, but he would forever be reluctant to admit that a “lady doctor” had patched him up. In spite of the challenges she knew lay ahead, Mary was determined to change society’s prevailing sentiment that medicine was “indecent for women to know.”
Mariam Ellen Canaga was the oldest of four children born to Elias and Ellen Canaga. She was born on June 29, 1873, at the Canaga farm in Red Willow, Nebraska. Mariam—or Mary, as her family called her—was a precocious child who acquired an early interest in medicine from her mother, who helped support the family by caring for expectant mothers. She would help deliver their babies and stay with them for a week afterward to do the cooking and cleaning. When Mary wasn’t with Ellen on the job, she was busy with the many chores she had to do around the homestead. Unable to keep her mind on farm work, Mary would occasionally sneak away to look at the books on midwifery her mother had hidden from the children. The subject matter fascinated Mary and fanned the flames of knowledge.
According to biographical information acquired from the Nebraska Historical Society, Mary was an exceptional student and an avid reader. At times her constant reading irritated her mother. Ellen felt Mary needed to be working instead, but Mary could not be torn away from her books. As she noted in her memoir:
I made up my mind that I was going to get more learning than our country school offered. At 13 . . . it was my sole objective in life to read everything I could lay my hands on.
 
BOOK: The Doctor Wore Petticoats: Women Physicians of the Old West
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