Grace Greenwood - Honorary First Lady of the Pikes Peak Region #PrairieRosePub

As part of an ongoing series about early women in the Pikes Peak Region, October's post is about Grace Greenwood.

To read others post in this series:
Elizabeth McAllister
Cara Bell

Unlike the first two ladies in the series, 'Grace Greenwood' only lived in the area a short time, but her writings sang the praises of Colorado and the Pikes Peak area. But who was 'Grace Greenwood'?

Image from Wikipedia

Grace Greenwood was the pen name for Sara Jane Lippincott. On September 23, 1823, Sara Jane Clarke was born to Deborah and Dr. Thaddeus Clarke in Pompey, New York. She went to school in Rochester, New York and later moved to Brighton, Pennsylvania with her family.

From an early age, Sara wrote and submitted poems and sketches, and had her first piece of prose published when she was twenty. Like others of her time she used a pen name. Once she started using the name Grace Greenwood, it became who she was. Even friends started calling her by the name Grace.

According the Inez Hunt and Wanetta Draper in their book "Colorado's Restless Ghost" Sara was "Exuberant and self-sufficient in an era when frailty was the fashion. Grace [Sara] grew too tall, was too vital, and too clever. She simply didn't fit her time nor her place; she outgrew them all."

Marrying late in life to Leander K. Lippincott, the couple had one child which they named Ann.While Grace traveled about with their daughter, Leander stayed behind. In 1876 he was indicted for land fraud and fled the country.

Image from Wikimedia Commons

Grace first came to Colorado in the early 1870s and it was noted in the 'Colorado Magazine' of September 1871, "Grace Greenwood is one of the literary attractions in Denver. She is here on a visiting, lecturing and observation tour, is corresponding for the New York Times and writing up the country in her most graceful style.''  After a visit to Colorado Springs and Manitou Springs she purchased land in the latter town in 1873 and set about having a cottage built for her . While the 'cottage' was being built she stayed with relatives, the Mellons, and enjoyed the company of the town leaders. After moving in, there was an attempted burglary but Grace took her Italian stiletto and went in hot pursuit. After the incident the following appeared in the local paper:

             

          We now give warning to all gentlemen of burglarious proclivities that a good and gallant friend having provided us with a six shooter, we intend to practice diligently with it, firing promiscuously from our balconies o'nights. I am not Mrs. J.B. Lippincott, and haven't any diamonds, our silver is plated, our money in the bank if we haven't over-drawn...I intend setting the shrubbery full of steel traps...no use for them to call again at Clematis Cottage [the name she gave her home] and may be slightly dangerous. P.S. another friend has lent us a brindle-bull terrier--very powerful.

Grace traveled, wrote, lectured and pursued many different causes in her lifetime. She lived in Europe for a time in the 1880s and wrote a a biography of Queen Victoria while there. She died at the home of her daughter on April 20, 1904 at the age of eighty-one.

In the end this woman who championed prison reform, woman's rights, the end of the death penalty and was staunchly anti-slavery, is little known today. To quote the Hunt/Draper book "Her brilliant flash across the Colorado skies had been meteoric and spectacular, but her flame burned out quickly and left no trace." Perhaps it is time to remember the Honorary First Lady of the Pikes Peak Region. 

Doris Gardner-McCraw -

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

Member of National League of American Pen Women,

Women Writing the West,

Pikes Peak Posse of the Westerners

Angela Raines - author: Where Love & History Meet

For a list of Angela Raines Books: Here 

Photo and Poem: Click Here 

Angela Raines FaceBook: Click Here

"His Magnificent Distraction " -First Ladies of the Pikes Peak Region

Welcome to the second in my ongoing series about the 'First Ladies' of the Pikes Peak Region.
Part One - Elizabeth McAllister

You may wonder about the title of this post. As you will soon learn, this lady had reason to be so adored.

Cara Georgina Whitmore Scovell Bell was born in March of 1853 in Dublin, Ireland to Whitman and Caroline Mary F. Scovell. She married Dr. William Abraham Bell on May 8, 1872 at Saint James, Westminster, London, England.

So who was Dr. William A. Bell? William was born in April 1841 in Ireland to an English physician also named William Bell. He studied medicine at Cambridge University and practiced at St. George's Hospital after receiving his degree. He came to the US in 1867 where he met General Wm. Jackson Palmer. The two became fast friends. Between the them, the had a hand in creating the Denver & Rio Grande Railway (and it's various iterations). Started Colorado Fuel and Iron. Invested in real estate and helped create the towns of Colorado Springs and Manitou Springs, Colorado.

After establishing his various businesses, and medicine was not high on his list, Bell returned to England to marry Cara. Upon her arrival in  Manitou Springs, Bell set about showing what he had accomplished, and to have her meet his friend Palmer. Traveling by wagon, they visited Palmer's home in Glen Eyrie, the Garden of the Gods, the mineral springs, and Bell's sheep farm in Monument some twenty miles away. According to sources Cara seemed to thrive on these 'arduous' jaunts. Her only insistence was that her chef, Antonio Manasterlotti, accompany them. (Much to his discomfort according to history)

Dr. William A. Bell and Cara Bell
from Pinterest - date unknown

Bell also set up a dairy farm and cheese factory in the Wet Mountain Valley, some seventy-five miles away. Other than some complaints from her chef, she appeared to love the trip to the area. It's fun to read her writing where she calls her husband, Willie and talk about her journeys. It seemed whatever or wherever 'Willie' wanted to go, Cara was up for the trip.

Cara was also a devout Episcopalian and set about searching for donors to build a church in Manitou Springs. The plans she had drawn up of an English church actually became the Manitou Railway station.

One of the promises Cara had William make was that their children would be born in England. Of course this meant some arduous travel in the 1870s-80s, but William was good to his word.  Their first child, Rowena was born January 26, 1874. Rowena at the age of three months was left with a wet nurse at Eastbourne, William's parents home and the two returned to America.

The Briarhurst Manor today- a fine dining restaurant
photo from Wikipedia

At twenty-one, Cara set up housekeeping and was thrilled when her daughter Rowena could join them. When the temporary church was built, Cara would conduct the choir rehearsals and play the organ. It was said she pumped the organ with such vigor her feathered had would fly off.

Although five children were born to the couple, only four made it to adulthood. The Bells, Cara, William and the children traveled constantly. When home, the doors were open to guests from all over the world. Cara would tell visitors "The roof is your introduction", and despite her absent-mindedness, everyone loved William's vivacious wife.

I will end with the story of the Thomas Moran painting, 'Mount of the Holy Cross' that Cara convinced the painter to sell to them when they visited the gallery while on a trip to England. When they returned, the painting was mounted in the library. It was viewed and admired by the many guests who visited The Briarhurst Manor, as their home was named, including President Grant and wife. When William was away in 1886, a fire broke out. Cara, upon smelling smoke, got the children from the house, then stayed and with the help of a servant, cut the painting from its frame and escaped the house. The house was destroyed, but the Bells build a new brick home that remains standing today. As for the original painting, it now resides in the Autry Museum of the Old West. View the Painting Here

There is more to Cara's story, but time and space limit the telling. The Bells returned to England around 1900 to retire. William passed away on June 6, 1921 at the age of eighty-one. Cara followed in December of 1937 at the age of eighty-four. She was living in Chelsea, London, England at the time.

Cara was a helpmate, adventurer, mother, hostess and one of the 'First Ladies' of Manitou Springs. She was William's "Magnificent Distraction".

Doris Gardner-McCraw -

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

Member of National League of American Pen Women,

Women Writing the West,

Pikes Peak Posse of the Westerners

Angela Raines - author: Where Love & History Meet

For a list of Angela Raines Books: Here 

Photo and Poem: Click Here 

Angela Raines FaceBook: Click Here

Five Women Doctors, Who Knew?

Post (c) by Doris McCraw/writing as Angela Raines

So what does the future hold?

I pondered for quite some time about what I would write about for this first post of 2017. Would I rehash the 'resolution' thing? No, I decided. I'd done that post on another blog already. How about things you don't know about me? Not that either, I tend to be pretty silent on that subject. How about famous quotes? Maybe.

I finally decided that I would share some of my research about a subject I'm passionate about. Other than writing fiction stories that is. So here for my first post of the new year, stories about early doctors in America and Colorado. Here then are five women who's stories captured me.

1. Dr. Harriet Kezia Hunt was a self-taught doctor who practiced in the state of Massachusetts in the 1830s. She is noted as the first woman to apply to Harvard Medical School and was denied admittance to that institution. Dr. Hunt began her studies when her sister Sarah became ill. Out of desperation for her sister’s health, Harriot had the English couple, Elizabeth and Richard Mott, take on her sister’s treatment. As she says in her autobiography ‘the doubt, uncertainty, and inefficacy of medical practice had been our portion; and the best physicians had given up an only sister!’ She continued studying with and working beside the Mott’s until Richard’s death and Elizabeth’s removal to New York. From that point on Harriot continued to build her practice, focusing on women and children. Hunt also was involved in social reform, specifically abolition of slavery and women’s rights, attending the 1850 women’s rights convention in Massachusetts. Dr. Hunt also corresponded with Dr.Elizabeth Blackwell, the first woman to graduate from a medical college in 1849, on at least one occasion. Again from her biography Dr. Hunt states ‘after my experiences with Harvard College, first the professors, then the students who played the same game with different men, it was truly encouraging to hear that Elizabeth Blackwell had graduated at another college, had been to Europe to perfect herself in her profession, and returned to the New York to commence her practice. My soul rejoiced – I poured out my feelings in a letter, and gave her the right hand of fellowship; it was acknowledged in an answer worthy of the writer.’ Later Hunt was awarded an honorary degree from the Female Medical College of Philadelphia in 1853.

Would some of the early women doctors lived in log cabins?

2. Dr. Harriett Leonard practiced medicine in the town of Manitou Springs,Colorado in 1876 according to family history. Dr. Leonard graduated from the Keokuk School of Physicians and Surgeons in Keokuk, Iowa. This school was the first co-ed schools in the nation. Originally located in LaPorte, Indiana, in 1849, the school moved to Keokuk and began classes in November 1850. The school was associated with the Medical Department of the State University of Iowa, located in Iowa City, Iowa. As a result of this association, when the University became the first publicly supported university to be co-educational in 1870, the school in Keokuk, by mandate had to accept female students into the medical program.

3. In the 1879 Leadville City Directory, Dr.Mary Helen Barker Bates is the only woman listed among 34 physicians. She had gone to Leadville with her husband George C. Bates, an attorney, and remained there until his health forced the couple to move to Denver around 1881. In Denver Dr. Bates made history as the first woman in Colorado to be appointed to the staff of the Women's and Children's Hospital in 1885. Dr. Bates went on to serve as a member of the Denver Board of Education, as Vice-President of the Colorado Medical Society, and as Colorado's Delegate to the 1904 Pan-American Medical Congress.

4. In 1878, Dr. Julia A. Adams moved from New York to take up residence in Chaffee County at the Cottonwood Hot Springs. Dr. Adams and her husband the Reverend J.A. Adams purchased the Cottonwood Hot Springs near what is now Buena Vista, Colorado. Shortly after this purchase, half interest went to George K. Hartenstein, a Buena Vista attorney and the husband to Dr. Adam's daughter. They invested around $50,000 to build a hotel/resort on the property. All materials were hauled to the site over the mountain from Colorado Springs as no train ran through that area. The Rev. and Dr. Adams, after leaving the region became involved with Mary Baker Eddy and the Christian Science movement. Some records say it was Rev. Adams who coined the phrase ‘Christian Science.

Dr. Adams would have views like this.

5. Dr. Genevieve M Tucker wrote Mother, Baby and Nursery: A Manuel for Mothers, a one hundred sixty plus page book, published by Roberts Brothers, copyright 1896. Her reason for writing the book is best explained in the preface. “the aim of this book is to be a guide to mothers, particularly young and inexperienced ones. It proposes to teach and help a mother understand her babe, to feed it properly, to place it in healthful surroundings, and to watch its growth and development with intelligence, and thus relieve in a measure the undue anxiety and nervous uncertainty of a new mother.” Dr. Tucker was appalled with the rate of infant mortality, and to that end as she says in her introduction, “decrease in infant mortality will be brought about more by strict hygiene and prevention of sickness then by any treatment of disease already begun, no matter how skillfully applied.” She practiced in Pueblo, Colorado. Around 1898 she was elected president of the Colorado Homeopathic Medical Society. The feeling was that Dr. Tucker could do much to unite the sometimes divided forces within the society and promote the cause of homeopathy. 

So there you have it. Five stories from the many women who ventured into the field normally held by men. Perhaps I will add more stories of these amazing women in the future. For now, it's back to research for a book on women doctors in Colorado prior to 1900, and one on the doctors who reside in Evergreen Cemetery in Colorado Springs, Colorado.

Wishing everyone a passionate year of storytelling and the fulfillment of many dreams in 2017 and beyond.

Angela Raines is the pen name for Doris McCraw. Doris also writes haiku posted at – http://fivesevenfivepage.blogspot.com  Check out her other work and like her Amazon author page:  http://amzn.to/1I0YoeL