More than a
half century later, Mary Purvine remembered the moment in 1898 when she decided
to be a doctor: “A woman physician was
called when a fall on a slippery board caused a fracture of mother’s right arm. Since at that time I had never seen or
scarcely heard of a woman doctor, I can still feel the thrill of watching her
deft manipulation reduce the dislocated bones and put in a splint. After watching this process and the dressing,
I announced to the surprised family that I was going to be a doctor. No one seemed shocked; Mother suggested that
I would have to take Latin if I were to take up medicine - and so the die was
cast.”
Mary was
the youngest daughter of Daniel and Lydia (Battey) Bowerman, a farm family in
Hesper, Iowa. Mary was born there in
1881 and, at the age of 17, accompanied her parents and three older siblings on
their move to Oregon. Settling on 26
acres near Rickey, Mr. Bowerman engaged in farming, despite a chronic heart condition;
his condition was “a shadow that never lifted”, according to Mary.
By the time
Mary had enrolled at Willamette, her eldest brother had been killed “driving in
front of a passenger train”, the next brother was on the way toward a legal
career, her sister becoming a teacher.
Mary said that at that time, she was a “tow-headed girl with
non-descript features, thin and straight, who knew nothing of the world except
that one worked for a living, that it was a sin to tell a lie, and the worst
thing in the world was to be a drunkard.”
This young
lady was sent off with a further admonition from her mother: “As I was supposed
to go to medical college later, the idea was supposed to be firmly in my mind
that I was never to marry, consequently never to have a boyfriend.”
Romance was
not part of Mary’s Willamette experience. Being the lone female in a class of
five was a terrible experience as she was the butt of their “rather vulgar
jokes”. One of the stories she recalled
for the collection of anecdotes her daughter published in 1958 concerned the
dissecting shed down near the millrace at the rear of the university grounds.
As it was a “short cut” path through the campus to town and featured many a
knothole in its walls, there was often an audience to observe the gloveless,
collidion-dosed, black muslin-gowned students, surgical instruments in hand,
making tentative incisions on the cadavers.
In 1903,
with medical license in hand, Mary moved to Condon as her brother Jay had his
legal practice there. After four years in eastern Oregon dealing with primitive
conditions and a prevailing prejudice against female doctors, she returned to
Salem as Mrs. Ellis Purvine and began a medical practice specializing in
obstetrics. She also began a family: two
daughters and a son who became a doctor himself.
Through the
years she was active in the First Congregational Church, the Salvation Army,
Salem Business and Professional Women’s Club, and served on the staffs of both
Salem General and Memorial Hospitals. In
1954, to commemorate her half-century in the medical profession, she was
recognized by the University of Oregon Medical School Alumni Association for
her 50 years “of service and sacrifice to the alleviation of human suffering.”
She retired
in 1962 still endowed with a lively sense of humor as her stories of her early
experiences as a doctor, published by her daughter, clearly show. Her long life of service ended in 1965 when,
on June 10th, she passed away peacefully at her home on University Street. She was buried at City View next to her
husband.
This information from:
"How I Became A Woman
Doctor," by Mary Purvine. From her book Pioneer Doctor, excerpted in Marion County History, Volume V, June 1959, and her obituary, Oregon Statesman, June 11, 1965, Section
II, Page 31.
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