They decided to keep the girls in the academy in Salem. Ariyah was close to them and the train ran daily between Portland and Salem now. They’d be with the girls on weekends and in summers. She didn’t say it out loud, but she was still cautious about Douglas. Josiah said he’d help Nellie find a job in Portland, which he did. Mary, her sister, lived in Illinois for now.
“Mom was very proud of you, you know,” Nellie said.
“I know. She was proud of you as well.”
“She wants us—wanted us—to do things like that too, go on to school.”
“We’ll help you, Nellie.” It was the least they could do for Lucinda and Sloan.
Callie—Dr. Charlton now—had chosen Portland too, and with a bit of irony, she pursued a homeopathic program while Jennie chose “regular” doctoring. Jennie located a surgeon she could continue studying with, one who had a special interest in women patients. To add to their continued friendship, Callie’s apartment and office were on the same street as the Parrish apartment. They often walked together to the hospital when they had admitted patients.
Josiah bought Jennie a medical bag with her initials worked into the leather. Together they ordered cards with JENNIE PARRISH, M.D. on them and a series of books she wanted to have on hand. They’d be shipped from San Francisco.
A building on First Street had five large rooms on the second floor that housed her fledgling practice. A waiting room, two for examinations, a library, and an office. Jennie wandered through the empty space, marveling that this was hers to tend. She must get Ariyah to come furnish it.
On the day she moved in, a sign graced the door. Josiah had had it painted.
Jennie Parrish, M.D.
Office hours
9:00 AM–11:30
2:00 PM–4:00
6:30 PM–8:00
She wished she had a camera to take a picture. How grateful she was that he understood the small pleasures that indicate someone supports a dream, opens his heart to that cloud of faith, believing none will fall through.
“You got a good rent.” Jennie looked at the contract.
“We own the building.”
“We do?”
“The downstairs will be the pharmacy. EG Jones and I are partnering.”
“No more homeopathic college work?”
Josiah smiled. “You’re a regular doctor now, Jennie. You’ll need a pharmacy. Without it, I might never see you. With it, I’m a part of all the good you’re doing. I’m not so old I don’t want to have a way to keep serving.”
She took on the accoutrements of a small-business woman. She acquired a post office box, kept office hours, referred people as needed for pharmaceuticals, got admitting privileges at Good Samaritan Hospital. An accounting firm kept her books and made collections, though Jennie screened who she felt could pay and who couldn’t. She hired a nurse who also greeted patients when they came in and kept their records. Jennie placed ads in The Oregonian.
Mrs. J. L. Parrish MD (late of New York), physician and surgeon makes diseases of women and children a specialty.
She added her address and office hours. Her ten volumes of medical texts arrived to line the bookshelves Josiah had made. He’d also made her desk. She flapped the newspaper at Josiah, then read with her usual hesitation under “Business Women in Portland” of her practice opening where they added “Late of New York.” Though not a full year of surgery experience, her time back East brought not only new skills but apparently prominence. West Coasters were enthralled by the aura of the East.
A few men came to Jennie’s practice, mostly to protest their wife’s wish to use a contraceptive after seven or eight children, occasionally lecturing her on her distorted role of womanhood. “You need to be home with your husband and children. Widowed women doctors are fine, but married ones? Appalling.”
Most of her patients were women and children, and she listened to their stories, encouraged them to do whatever they must to keep themselves and their children safe from a spouse or uncle or father who became a different person when they drank. And she always encouraged them to dream.
Obstetrics allowed Jennie to see women excited about their babies, rejoice with a mother who had had three previous miscarriages now carry her infant to term. She taught classes about nutrition and spoke of ways to increase the chance of a successful delivery. No one ever asked her for an abortion, but more than once she repaired damage done by self-inflicted efforts to terminate a pregnancy. She had to tell one woman she would likely not conceive again; to others she spoke of pacing births even with the Comstock Law in place prohibiting the mailing of materials about contraception. They were deemed “obscene.” Women needed information and there was nothing obscene about the way a woman’s body worked. She never mentioned her distributing such material to the police officers in her families. Some things were better left unsaid.
38
Racing Time
Where’s that pewter hat pin I so love?” Jennie bustled about the apartment as Josiah and she prepared to take the train to Willamette to hear a concert where Grace and Dr. Cusick’s daughter Ethel were going to play. They’d treat the girls to éclairs after the concert and spend the night in Salem.
“In your hand,” Josiah said.
“Oh.” She pushed it through the felt and into the twist of hair, took one last look in the mirror to check on the seams of the jacket she wore over the olive skirt. She’d had the skirt taken in; she kept forgetting to eat.
The girls played “Wedding Reception Polka” by A. S. Sweet. Later a reviewer wrote, “The duet was rendered in a way that reflected credit upon them, Miss Parrish being one of the youngest members of the conservatory.” She was ten already. The girls spent summers with their parents in Portland, but they missed their friends in Salem. Jennie began to think about moving back, but her practice grew. She pondered what to do while listening to that duet.
The music had been composed the year Jennie graduated. It was funny how she equated events with “the year I graduated” or “two years after I graduated,” as though that was a new marker in her life. She knew that great joys like marriages and when children were born made markers on stories. So did longed-for accomplishments achieved.
Thankfully, the girls thrived at Willamette and the Collegian reported on paintings the girls had done in oil of Mt. Hood. “They are engaged now in flower plaques,” the reporter wrote. Ariyah had inspired their artistic ventures. Douglas . . . well, Douglas continued to challenge. He had reappeared briefly about the same time Nellie went to New York, something the Parrishes arranged for her when she told them she was being harassed by a man at her work. Douglas stayed a fortnight, keeping sober. Then he disappeared again. Between Samuel Parrish and Jennie’s brother Fergus, who was a municipal police officer, they learned about him. He’d taken a job as a carpenter. “With Charley Pickett, his dad,” her brother told her.
“With Charles? Oh, Fergus. Are they, I mean, do they drink together?”
“’Fraid so, Sister. The department gets calls about drunken behavior of them both.”
“Can’t you put him in jail, get him sober so he can try again?”
“Oh, we do. Sometimes he’s in the hospital with a cut or bruise from a brawl. Such a handsome boy.” He shook his head.
All they could do for him now was to pray, but perhaps that was always the only real thing that could change his behavior. That and change her own sooner, refusing to give him money if he asked, assuming it would go for liquor and not whatever he told her it was for, like for climbing Mt. Hood.
Chen remained with them, but otherwise, it was Josiah and Jennie in the apartment and often just Jennie, as Josiah spent time in Salem getting their new home built on the thirty-three acres Jennie owned. Once finished, they planned to return to Salem. It had grown enough, it could support her practice. Josiah took Chen with him. Jennie wanted to be sure he and the girls had plenty of good food. Her own appetite wasn’t much these days.
The practice kept her
occupied, but alone in the apartment, listening to the street sounds of horses and delivery wagons, carriages and carts, she missed Josiah and wondered how much longer she’d have the love of her life. He’d turned seventy-six in January and she noted his steps had become a little slower. His response when she asked him a question took longer. Sometimes she had to repeat what she said. But at night he still held her tight, kissed her with the fierceness of a man in love. Sometimes they danced together. She would cling to those moments and not think about his growing older.
On a winter’s day in 1882, Callie and Jennie were asked to present papers at the newly organized Oregon Medical Society. Jennie’s was on “Diseases Incident to Pregnancy” and Callie’s on “Typho-Malaria Fever.” They were both elected into the group this time. Mary Sawtelle clapped Jennie’s back, called her “colleague” as she offered congratulations, and added, “You’re looking a little piqued. Don’t overdo.” The chairman suggested Jennie run for office.
“That isn’t of my interest.” She thought of the politics still rumbling about the move of the medical program to Portland, dealing with those disappointed in the transition. She’d stayed out of that politics and planned to continue.
Dr. Ford-Warren, a first female Willamette graduate, had given an address at the meeting and she pointedly told Jennie afterward, “You must do your part to assist other women in their medical pursuits.” Jennie wondered why she didn’t run herself, but then she was likely still grieving over the death of her sister in Jacksonville. She’d died in childbirth, as so many women did.
“Perhaps I could offer to take on one reader, maybe more.”
“That takes care of one, but if you were active in the society, more women would see the possibility of becoming physicians. Run for vice president. See how things operate for a few years.”
“But why me?”
“You’re bright, well-studied with New York recommendations. And you’ve taken on the task of educating women to reduce problems of childbirth. We’ve needed that in Portland.”
“I’ll consider it after I’ve been in practice longer.”
“There’s never any time like the present.”
“It was astonishing,” Jennie told Josiah, waking him at dawn when she returned after a delivery that turned into a Caesarean she had to perform on her own. “I remembered everything, could see the drawings from those texts, gave direction to the midwife. It was . . . spiritual, as though I wasn’t alone there holding the scalpel.”
“I’ve had moments like that. Hard to explain.”
“Yes. The midwife was a great nurse. I told her she ought to think about becoming a doctor. She said it had always been her dream but she didn’t see how that could happen. I told her not to give up hope.”
“Maybe the medical society could offer scholarships,” Josiah said as he plumped up the pillow and patted the bedside to have her sit.
“Yes. Maybe.” She hadn’t thought of that.
“A scholarship might be something an officer of that association could champion.”
“I’d do more good trying to repeal Comstock’s Law or passing Prohibition.”
Josiah laughed. “I thought you weren’t interested in politics.”
“I’m not. Oh, Josiah, the siblings at that delivery grinned at the sound of their baby sister. It was as though we were all part of something larger, while the midwife cleaned the baby and I stitched the mother’s wounds. This is what I went to school for, dreamed about, distilled those herbs for, even tried to understand the brain for. That one day, my hands would bring joy into the world.”
“It’s all been worth it then? Even with Douglas not responding as we hoped?”
“Yes. It’s worth it.” She cuddled up closer to him. “I like the scholarship idea. I might even be able to enlist other women doctors in the cause. Bethina Owens. Ford-Warren. Callie. Esther.” She thought of several others.
“Don’t exclude the men. They could contribute too.” He coughed.
“Are you all right?”
“Morning catarrh. Don’t you worry.”
“Maybe I will let my name be put into contention as vice president. But I’ll tell them why and propose the scholarship at the same time.” Politics can be used for good. She leaned her head against his chest, listened to his beating heart. She’d need to change and go to the office in a few hours, but she might catch thirty minutes of sleep. First, she wanted to hold him who kept coming up with ways to enhance her life. A scholarship. To any medical school a woman might prefer. “Josiah Parrish, you’re a treasure I can’t imagine being without.”
Both Callie and Jennie advanced their causes: Callie became a member of the board and Jennie let her name be put in as vice president. She was sure there’d be someone she’d run against, but on the actual day, she was the only nominee. They elected her unanimously, the first woman doctor to serve in an office of the Oregon State Medical Association.
She’d discouraged Josiah from attending—family members could join them for tea and cakes at the end—but he slipped in the back to see her make her acceptance speech and introduce the scholarship effort. She missed her sister at that moment more than she’d allowed before. Lucinda would have applauded—and baked fine cakes for the occasion. Callie and Jennie had brought all the refreshments. It was what women did.
“You’re beaming,” Josiah told her at the tea table, his head lowered to hers in a whisper.
“I am.”
“That dimple is as deep as an ocean when you smile. I’m so proud of you, Madam Vice President.” His eyes watered and she squeezed his hand.
Back at their apartment she placed her hat in the box, fluffed up her hair with her fingers.
“Here you go then.” Josiah handed her a package.
“Is it a new vase?”
It was a foot tall.
“Guess again.”
She pulled off the wrapping. “A new microscope!”
“Used to be I bought you necklaces and now it’s doctor supplies,” he said wistfully.
“And one day a new home.” She kissed him.
“If I ever get it finished. I can’t do as much hammering as I used to, Jennie. Sorry it’s taken so long.”
“You’re a meticulous man. And stubborn, I might add. Let the builders do the work now.”
Adding on an office space had delayed the Salem project, but it would offer the option of having a practice in both cities. She’d begun attracting the daughters of prominent families in Portland and Salem, women taking the train. She allowed Josiah and the girls to have their say in design and furnishings and actually felt relief that they had activities to do together when her own kept her focused on her patients and her practice. It was as though she ran a race against time, watching the girls grow up, seeing Josiah’s fading years. And yet it was in being a doctor where she found the great joy that fed her love for all around.
“I don’t mind the wait for the house except for not having you close by. It’s harder to keep my eye on you. You aren’t climbing any ladders, are you?” He shook his head. “Good. Recovery would take much longer if you fell now.”
Callie, her medical confidante and friend, surprised Jennie by announcing she would take a year of study in Chicago at the homeopathic Hahnemann Medical College there.
“Who will I complain to? You talked me into running for office and then desert me? What about our scholarship program?”
Callie laughed. “It’s only a short study. I’ll be back by ’84.”
Jennie felt a sense of loss she didn’t understand. She’d been her colleague, her encouragement, and now she wasn’t going to be there for her to consult with, tell her stories to.
“We’ll write and I’ll likely be back by the time we’ve raised sufficient endowment for the scholarship. I can help you make final choices.” She reached out for Jennie and hugged her. “Come on. You’ll be fine. You spent months in New York on your own.”
“I know. You go.” She made her words light an
d teasing. “Breathe in the aroma of frankincense and explore the Pulsatilla plant’s healing properties. I once thought I might be a Pulsatilla type. Homeopathy has much psychology to merit it.”
“And a long history.”
Jennie nodded.
“You needn’t turn your back on what you know of it because of what happened to Nora. That wasn’t your fault.”
“Oh, I think I’ve grieved that.”
Callie clucked her tongue. “You never get over a death, accidental or otherwise. And you’ve had your share of them. We have to find a way to take wisdom from the loss. And you did. You have. You’re maybe even a doctor because of it.”
“See. I’ll miss your insights.”
“You’ll do fine without me. You have your girls and Josiah, better champions you could not find, isn’t that right?”
She knew it was. Her carousel would move up and down in a predictable way. The only thing uncertain now was when she’d step off.
39
Women’s Ways of Knowing
A grand piano arrived by ship under skies that wept rain. But the squeals when the girls saw the Steinway drowned out the rare January thunderclaps and the steady patter of raindrops against the roof. He had surprised them with the piano. After all these years, she could tell by his eyes that he still loved to surprise her. The girls each played a piece for him and teased him when he tried to sing along.
With Ariyah’s help, Jennie planned an eightieth birthday party for Josiah, inviting her parents, his children, as many brothers and sisters of hers as could come, old friends from his Indian agent years and missionary times and young ones who worked on the house and the orphanage and the schools for the deaf and blind and mute children. Josiah’s children had come to the party, and Charles Winn didn’t wince when his father told him that this new house was in Jennie’s name and that they planned to sell the house he and Elizabeth had lived in.