All She Left Behind

  That Josiah had studied more years than she would did seem odd, but then he had trained to help the soul and she sought ways to heal the body, the latter less complicated. She pushed the girls in the swing that Alex’s grandfather had hung in Ariyah’s big oak trees. Each child had their own and didn’t have to wait.

  “Again, Mama.” JoJo kicked her legs up high, her striped stockings like a rainbow against the blue sky.

  She’d miss these moments, savored them all the more for beginning to transform her guilt into something good.

  Jennie sought the proper practitioner. She wanted a “regular,” as nonhomeopathic doctors were called. Josiah gave her suggestions from his contacts at the university, and one of the earliest graduates appealed to her. She found him in Gervais, a small town on the French Prairie north of Salem and near where her parents had lived. William Cusick had a background in farming and botany, then the military, which gave him surgery experience. He also consulted with Dr. Hawthorne’s asylum in Portland. Perfect.

  “Dr. Cusick has agreed to interview me,” she told Josiah. “Anyone who has an interest in plants must be patient, and that’s what he’ll need with this student.”

  They stood at the barn, where Josiah shoed a horse. Jennie held the halter rope and rubbed the horse’s nose. She’d forgotten Josiah had been trained as a blacksmith until she saw him work. She hoped his bad leg would allow him to finish what he’d started with this animal. He was always challenging himself to do more. His arms were a sinew of muscle. He’d exercised even while lying on his back in his recovery. His handshake, her father told her once, was the grip of a man in his forties. Sometimes it seemed he had more energy than she did. Aging invited people to its dance in peculiar ways.

  “You have to interview him as well,” Josiah said into the horse’s hock. He pounded with his hammer. “There are others you could study with, so if there are tensions, look elsewhere.” He stood and stretched, patting the horse’s rump.

  “I hadn’t thought about my choosing him so much as finding a doctor who would accept me.” She needed to “adjust her lens,” as Ariyah would say. And so she did.

  Dr. Cusick had reddish hair that he said came from his Irish mother. His rounded belly was a German influence. He sat across from Jennie behind a wide desk stacked with orderly folders on either end, so she looked at him through a tunnel of paper.

  As she had when she interviewed Lizzie, she condensed answers so she could remember them. She asked him questions about homeopathy (excellent area of study); asked whether he considered himself a “regular” doctor (he did; surgery and pharmaceuticals can do great good to the human body). He asked her how long she’d been interested in medicine, and she told him since a child (always good to have a child’s passion for it, he’d replied). But because of her reading problems, she had let the dream drift away like a wayward kite. Now she hoped to tug it back.

  “What are your reading problems?”

  “Words don’t appear to me as they might to you, so I have to translate as though they were a foreign language. At least that’s how my brother described it to me. I had to learn the letters a different way to get their sounds and sight matched up.”

  “But you are able to do this?”

  She nodded. “I’ve read several texts already. Where would you have me begin?” She needed to know if he thought her capable of the more difficult texts: anatomy, physiology, others.

  “What texts have you read already?”

  “Women’s Concerns for one. I read Dr. Glisan’s article, the Portland physician, on ‘Climate and Diseases of Oregon’ in the American Medical Journal of Sciences.” She listed several other texts and journal articles. Josiah had purchased a subscription to the journal for her. She told the doctor of Gray’s Anatomy.

  “A special concern of yours would be?”

  “Liquor. How it affects the brain but also how it affects the rest of us, all society, especially women.” He blinked. “I remember telling my sister once, ‘How can someone in their right mind keep drinking when it causes them to lose employment, family, friends, their health.’ Now I see the error in that question. I had assumed the person was in their right mind—but after all that consumption of spirits, very likely they aren’t. Mere living can cause brain illness. Sadness, constant stress, watching someone you love die, being abandoned—those events, not only infection or trauma—affect the brain and heart. I’d like to know how liquor touches both.”

  “I’m not sure there are scholarly works written by physicians that can address that, Mrs. Parrish. Autopsy is how we discover much about the brain and the liver, other organs. But how that person lived while they consumed such toxins, that’s likely another field of study. Perhaps with Dr. Hawthorne. You know of his work?”

  He needed to know about Douglas and Jennie’s story of living with a husband who imbibed too much.

  “Yes.” She looked at her gloved hands. “My son struggles. His father, Charles Pickett, you may have read about him in the paper now and then. He . . . abandoned us for his love of liquor. Now my son seems drawn to its siren call. He’s spent time with Dr. Hawthorne. We are hopeful that cure will hold. I’ve had an interest in oils and aromatics, homeopathy. I look for natural healing, but they did not seem to prevent the cravings or bring about a balance in the system of my former husband or my son. I’m turning now to allopathy—regular doctoring.”

  “It’s a challenging . . . effort.”

  “What interests me, too, is the stress of lost paychecks, empty cupboards, sick children, mothers who can’t afford medicine for their own worn-down bodies, illness caused by venereal diseases, internal damage to organs from drunkard husbands. And then there are the trials of pregnancy, many children, and the very risk of childbirth. I know those may not seem like issues related to alcohol and other addictions, but I think they are. I would like to read to find out if I’m close to being correct.”

  “You forget violent behaviors and even death of women and children because of drink. And prostitution and its evils related to the demon. You’re not suggesting that only men consume?”

  “Not at all.” Jennie was thoughtful. “Maybe I’ll study women’s diseases and the effect of alcohol on them both when they consume it and when they have to live with it around them.” Miss Priscilla’s yellow beaded reticule and scarf flashed through her memory; her pregnancy. Did she drink? How would that affect her child? At least she had Mary Sawtelle to treat her. But Mary had left town.

  “It’s a large order, addiction and women’s health. Very well, how do you propose to do the reading?”

  His asking her was both respectful and frightening. It would be up to her to establish her own study. “I thought we could discuss various texts you think I should be exposed to. And then we could delve into them a chapter at a time, perhaps two texts at once?”

  “You can come weekly then? Perhaps twice?”

  She nodded.

  “We’ll discuss what you’ve read and you can sit in with some of my patients, if they agree. We can explore questions and ways to pursue answers.”

  “I was hoping you could give me the answers.”

  He smiled, which helped slow the beating of her anxious heart.

  “I know that knowledge comes more from questions than from answers, and I appreciate your willingness to let me ask and search and find my way.”

  “So you’ll have me as your preceptor?” He looked over the top of his glasses.

  “Yes, of course. Shall we discuss fees?”

  “I usually read with two students,” Dr. Cusick said. “And take on at least one pro bono, as my lawyer friends would say.”

  “It ought not to be me. Josiah and I can afford this. Would we study together, your other student and me?”

  “Yes. I’ve a widow with a young child who wishes to matriculate eventually. She’s saved her money as a teacher but still needs financial support. Callie Charlton.”

  Jennie gasped.

  “You know her??
??

  “We met in Dr. Mary Sawtelle’s office.”

  “Ah, Mrs. Sawtelle, who flunked anatomy, they say.”

  Would she ever be known as just a good doctor? “She says she was refused a graduate degree because of politics.”

  “I fear she’s right. You’ll face your share of it, Mrs. Parrish, despite your husband’s influences.”

  “Perhaps because of them.”

  “Perhaps. Medicine itself struggles with seeing the female as strong enough to complete a degree, despite the many women doctors back East who have. Others feel a woman ought to keep the home fires burning, put herself into doing social good, Christian reaching out. Nothing wrong with that view.” He tapped a pencil on the pad before him, leaned back into his chair. The springs creaked as he did. “But I am of the opinion that we’re created with desires, and one’s gender ought not get in the way of whatever purpose has been planned. I’m in the minority. Even after reading with me, there is no guarantee you will be allowed entrance or that you’ll find patients if you do.”

  “I understand. It’s worth the effort regardless of how it turns out.”

  “A great definition of hope, I might say.” He stood to shake her hand. “That understood, bring me a list of what you’ve already read and let’s take a look at my texts. You can order your reference books once you’ve graduated. Until then, you’ll have the loan of these.”

  Once I’ve graduated.

  He spread his hand around the room, floor to ceiling with books. Textbooks. Medical books. Books with questions and answers. Books to guide her path.

  35

  Grace Dancing

  When they met in his office, Callie and she, Dr. Cusick led the discussion, asking questions and telling stories. Jennie created a way to make notes that highlighted the major points, drawing pictures from the texts and Dr. Cusick’s lectures. She even wrote down the bad puns he was fond of using suggesting that the “orthopedic lecturers were riddled with bones of contention” or that people taking advantage of free surgeries to provide experience for students at the college had become “epidemic,” not to mention how the politics of medicine threatened to “rupture the organ–ization.” He’d grin.

  His gentle teaching built her confidence that she had the ability to take in the information and use it for good. She learned from Callie’s questions too. Dr. Cusick added texts to their lists. The Scripture speaking of being “fearfully and wonderfully made” held new meaning for Jennie as she learned of the intricacies of bone and blood. Medicine was more than knowing how organs functioned or nerves wove their way through the body; it was also about disease and countering it with potions and surgeries to oppose its ravaging of body and spirit. But most of all, being a doctor was about human warmth and understanding, about healing. Her medical book spoke of incarn, a word that meant “the growing of new flesh.” That referred not just to the human body but to a person’s soul. Listening with the heart grew new flesh; being present for another’s pain, even if one couldn’t stop it, brought healing. Healing also meant admitting that sometimes allopathic and homeopathic answers stood beyond their reach. Then a practitioner must create paths toward acceptance of mortality and do it with grace. It was the perfect venue for a woman’s place. Women ought not be left behind.

  She read each text through the lens of addictions and how they wove their way into one’s body. She was a student now, studying, doing what she could to stave off that fiend of guilt sporting “whips and stings.”

  She loved the days when she and Callie met with his patients, one a woman very pregnant whom Dr. Cusick had tried to dissuade from drink.

  “It helps me sleep, Doctor. A little brandy in the evening.”

  “It’s not good for you. We three doctors sitting here believe so.”

  Her eyes looked at each of theirs. Jennie had smelled the liquor on her when she entered.

  “Are you mothers?” The women both nodded. “Did you take a snort now and then?” Both shook their heads. “Well, you ain’t living with my husband and six kids or you would have.” She had a few of them with her, and one had facial features that didn’t reflect the family resemblance. Narrow eyes with little folds at the edges, a flat nose with smoothness below and ears closer to his jaw than his eyes.

  “Did you use brandy when pregnant with each of your children?”

  “Yes, ma’am. They turned out all right.”

  Dr. Cusick asked her to take a walk down the lane before bed instead of brandy.

  “I’ll try.”

  Later the students peppered him with questions. Jennie commented on the child’s interesting appearance and Callie spoke of those same features present with some children she had taught. “I never put them together with liquor consumption.”

  “Maybe they don’t go at all,” Jennie said. “Still, it’s best to not imbibe, that’s the main point, right, Dr. Cusick?”

  “Indeed. It might make an interesting study, Mrs. Parrish, but I’m not sure how you’d formulate your hypothesis.”

  “We must ask more questions of our patients’ daily lives,” Callie said. “With this woman we could smell the alcohol. But with others we might not.”

  “Perhaps you could prepare a series of questions a family doctor might ask, in general, to find out more about his patients. Her patients,” he corrected.

  And so they did.

  Callie’s presence and perseverance as a young widow encouraged Jennie; her persistence with reading and observations inspired Callie. When they met in Salem, in between reading instructions, they shared stories of husbands, of children’s antics, of mothering, and of parents, the purview of a daughter’s life. Callie’s daughter, Lenora, often came with her, and the girls played side by side while their mothers “boned up” on orthopedic topics. Lizzie brought them tea. Josiah listened in, always a smile on his face.

  “You’re a good team,” he said once after Callie had left.

  “Two are better than one.”

  Jennie was disappointed, though, that none of the readings gave real insights into alcohol and addictions. Dr. Cusick said people had become more interested in punishment and shame as poisons to quench the thirst of addiction.

  “Personally,” Jennie told Josiah after they put the girls to bed, “I think such tactics only serve to push the person further into their destruction. I don’t believe they can stop imbibing. Something within the brain and body makes that so. One day pathologists will tell us what. I think it’s a disease like ovarian cysts or appendicitis. The fearmongering of so-called educators like Mary Hunt and even the WCTU may get the laws changed, but it will not stop the cravings. We’ll have more people in jail for drunkenness, with nothing to offer them when they sober up.”

  The textbooks on obstetrics and gynecology fed her desire for learning. In between her studies, she devoted time to Josiah and the girls, drawing with them, settling disputes, treasuring their existence. She took packages of cookies to Douglas at Willamette, did not address his reddish eyes (had he been crying or drinking?) nor his furtive glances. She visited with Ariyah and her sister, her parents too. Jennie had no hobbies that consumed her. All was family and medicine washed with prayers of gratitude that she was allowed to pursue a dream and had a family that supported it.

  She’d been reading about six months. They’d seen Mrs. Harvey’s newborn (who had none of the strange features); assessed Mr. Johnson’s swollen hand (infected from lack of treatment after he cut it with a butcher knife); and little Bessie William’s swallowing a BB. “It’ll shoot right through her, if you get my meaning,” Dr. Cusick told Bessie’s mom. The woman blushed.

  Later he said to his precepts, “It’ll be a shot fired in the dark when that BB comes forth.” The women rolled their eyes.

  “So now,” he continued, “I’m going to recommend you both for membership in the Marion County Medical Society.” It was March 1877.

  “Not yet!” both Callie and Jennie said.

  “I realize this is a new orga
nization and that neither of you are physicians. But at the recommendation of a preceptor, I’m hoping they’ll let you join. It’ll expand the ranks and give legitimacy to the organization and certainly to each of you. It allows you access to presentations, the reading room, and museum. You can borrow microscopes, crutches, other equipment. You’ll rub elbows with some of the professors. Get you ready for a bit of politicking. Medical societies are a great place for that.” He rubbed his hands together like a man over a fire.

  The women sat before a crackling flame in his study while March winds blew dead leaves past the window.

  “There’s all that talk of moving the medical college to Portland, lots of politics. If you indicate your intention to apply to Willamette’s Medical School, it will enhance your chances of being accepted into the society. They’re lobbying to keep the college here. The Ford sisters have graduated now, the first women from Willamette. You two could be next.”

  “What lectures are likely?” Callie asked.

  “The diseases of women and children is scheduled next month. You might discuss your women’s survey questions. Could be instructive for members. Women are more likely to express their complaints to one of their own sex. It’s usually the husbands who object, thinking women will conspire against them. They like the assurance of a man-to-man diagnosis. Truth is, I think you’re ready, both of you.”

  Callie’s gasp expressed Jennie’s awe. “For the society,” Callie said.

  “And to enroll,” Dr. Cusick said. “The new term starts next month. Within two years, you could be having ‘Doctor’ before your names and dancing up the stairs to your own office. Here is the invitation. Now is the time to dance.”

  He winked as he handed them the next texts, and Jennie realized he received as much from their dancing as she and Callie did.

  Jennie was accepted as a member of the Marion Society, but Callie was not.

  “Pure politics,” Dr. Cusick said. He thumped his desk. “Deplorable.” It bothered Jennie too. Likely it was Josiah’s influence that allowed her acceptance. She invited Callie as her guest and they presented their questionnaire together. It might have helped Callie, as the following month both were accepted into the Willamette medical program with five other women and seven men. They would graduate as doctors in 1879, two years away.