A REMEMBERING OF THE PAST

Post by Doris McCraw
writing as Angela Raines

View from the cemetery
Photo property of the author

One of the places I walk/hike is a cemetery close to my home. This past week I again walked by the headstone of Anna D. Chamberlain and remembered a post I'd written some time back. It reminded me how amazing she was, although like all females in the medical field in the early days, not much is known. I keep searching but wanted to share the story I wrote on her story again.

Her name is Anna D. Chamberlain. I initially found her in the 1896 Colorado Springs city directory listed with her husband Frank C. Chamberlain, also a dentist.  Their office was #12 in the bank building with a residence at 1451 N. Nevada Ave.

Anna was born in 1866 to John Shaw and Hellen B Shaw in Harlan, Page County, Iowa. Her father was from Ireland and her mother was born in Ohio. She married Frank in 1887 and they had three children by 1900. She died in 1914 at the age of forty-eight.

Cemetery in Fall

According to her obituary, she and her husband had been associated with dentistry since 1888. There are indications they practiced in Colorado Springs, Colorado City, and Manitou Springs.   She was one of the first women and in the first graduating class in the field from the University in Denver. Her husband was also an M.D. and received his license in 1892 although there is no mention of his pursuing this field in Colorado Springs. That would make sense since there were numerous physicians in the area. His brother Fred was a dentist in Cripple Creek in the 1890s and also ended up in Colorado Springs. On a side note, Fred married a woman named Anna B. 

Photo property of the author

In addition to a dental practice and raising three children, she was also active in the church and the WTCU (Women's Christian Temperance Union) and in the late 1890s was the president of the local organization of the WTCU.  She and her husband along with Wm. H. Dewey and Oscar J. Fullerton created the Fullerton Consumption Cure Company with an initial investment of $30,000. Colorado Springs was one of the meccas for those searching the cure for consumption, having clean air and lots of sunshine to mention a few of the reasons for people heading this way. Dr. Edwin Solly had traveled from England to the area with his wife seeking a cure. His wife passed, but he recovered. His writings and pamphlets at the beginning of the region probably helped in bringing invalids to the area. 

After her death her husband moved to California and remarried. After his death in 1928, his second wife returned his body to Colorado Springs. He is buried near Anna in Evergreen Cemetery.

Doris Gardner-McCraw -

Author, Speaker, Historian-specializing in
Colorado and Women's History

Angela Raines - author: Where Love & History Meet

Books: Angela Raines Books

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