Page:The part taken by women in American history.djvu/784

Rh eleven years old. After five or six years in that city, his business failed and he moved to Cincinnati. He had been there but a few weeks when he died, leaving a widow and nine children in very embarrassed circumstances. Elizabeth, who was his third daughter, together with her two oldest sisters opened a Young Ladies' Seminary and supported the family. Finding a better opportunity for private teaching in South Carolina, she went there in 1845, teaching music and French in a few wealthy families, while she read medicine with Doctor Samuel H. Dickson, of Charleston. After two or three years of hard labor in South Carolina, and about two years more devoted to the study of medicine in Philadelphia and Geneva, New York, she received her medical diploma. In receiving it from the head director, she replied, "I thank you sir. With the help of the Most High it shall be the effort of my life to shed honor upon this diploma." Nor was this resolution in vain. Elizabeth Blackwell may be said to be the dean of the corps of splendid women physicians in the United States, and few if any have exceeded her in conscientious skill.

Mrs. Aldrich was born in Westfield, New York, October 6, 1859. Her ancestors were among the early Dutch settlers of the Hudson Valley. Her maiden name was Southard, but little is known of her family. Her great-grandfather only remembered that his name was Southard and that he was stolen from a port in England. She married Doctor A. G. Aldrich, of Adams, Massachusetts, in 1883, and this resulted in her immediately taking up the study of medicine and surgery. Later removing to Minnesota, she graduated from the Minnesota Medical College and took post-graduate courses in many of the best schools of the country.

Miss Armstrong was born in Newton near Cincinnati, on July 31, 1857. She was educated in the schools of Cincinnati and later in Lebanon, Ohio, where the family made their home. At sixteen she became a teacher. She received the degree of B.S., in 1880, from the Lebanon University and the highest honors in a class of sixty-six members. She later became a teacher in this school and while engaged in this work, obtained her degree of B.A. and later that of M.A. In 1886 she took her first degree in medicine and was appointed physician to the college. Later she spent some time in New York taking a course in the hospitals of that city. She inherits the love for the profession from her great-grandmother who was the first woman to practice medicine west of the Alleghany Mountains. Miss Armstrong possesses a very fine voice and has also literary talents.

Miss Bennet was born in Wrentham, Massachusetts, January 31, 1851. She taught in the district schools in her early youth but took up the study of medicine