The Doctor Wore Petticoats: Women Physicians of the Old West Read Online Free Page B

for sick and dying Omaha Indians, would not come. He was hunting prairie chickens and could not be persuaded to visit the reservation. It was 1877, and the health of an Indian woman was inconsequential to the white reservation doctor.
     

    AT THE AGE OF TWELVE, SUSAN LA FLESCHE BEGAN TO IMAGINE HERSELF AS A DOCTOR, AND BY THE TIME SHE WAS TWENTY-FOUR SHE HAD BECOME THE FIRST FEMALE NATIVE-AMERICAN PHYSICIAN.

     
    Susan spent the remainder of the evening hopelessly trying to make the woman comfortable. The agony of the lady’s unknown affliction continued until the morning. By the time the sun had fully risen, the woman had passed away. Susan stood over the lifeless body, contemplating the tragedy and deciding her own course of action. If she were a doctor, she would respond quickly to Indians in need of medical attention. Their lives would matter to her.
    Such were the circumstances surrounding Susan’s initial interest in medicine. After witnessing the old woman’s agony, she resolved to “serve others, visit the poor, and help the suffering humanity.”
    Susan La Flesche was born in June of 1865, the youngest daughter of Omaha Indian Chief Joseph La Flesche and his wife, Mary. Susan, her three older sisters, and two brothers were raised to generously give of themselves to those in need.
    At the insistence of her parents, and like her siblings before her, Susan took full advantage of the “white education” offered to children on the reservation. The focus of the white missionaries who ran the school was to transform the seemingly wild Indian into a respectable citizen of the United States. Susan would allow them to teach her new ways, but would never fully abandon the traditions in which she was raised. According to Susan’s journal, “the old ways are not devoid of values, culture, and emotional ties, and need always to be preserved.”
    Chief La Flesche instilled many values in Susan and her brothers and sisters. He was a farmer, and his children worked alongside him as they grew up. Susan’s jobs varied throughout the seasons. In the spring she sowed corn, hoed potatoes, and weeded. In the fall she lent a hand with the harvest. Throughout the year she foraged wood, tended to the livestock, dressed animal skins, dried bison meat, and carried water to the camp from a nearby stream. With few exceptions Susan’s childhood was idyllic. The United States government’s attempt to rid the Omaha people of their “Indianness” was the only major difficulty she faced in her younger years.
    Susan excelled in school and was often hailed by her teachers as an “exceptional student with massive potential.” At the age of fourteen, with her eyes fixed on a career in medicine, Susan persuaded her parents to allow her to further her learning at the Elizabeth Institute for Young Ladies in New Jersey. Susan’s sister had attended the school some years prior and was now a teacher on the reservation. Believing Susan would receive a better education at the institute, Joseph agreed to let her go.
    Susan remained at the school for two and a half years. In addition to courses in English, Latin, literature, and music, she took on a number of college preparatory classes. The time she spent at the institute gave her a cross-cultural understanding that further enhanced her education. She returned to the reservation in 1882, a well-rounded seventeen-year-old with a greater knowledge of the government and the people seeking control of the Omaha Nation. Her goal now was to not only become a physician, but to be an advocate of Indian rights. Susan would learn from her father how best to politically serve the Omaha people.
    Under Chief Joseph’s leadership, the tribe was negotiating with Congress to remain on their ancestral homeland. Joseph needed the support of his well-educated children to help him through the process. Eventually, a land allotment agreement between the United States government and Native Americans temporarily halted