DURING THE UTAH Historical Society's 100th birthday celebration, I was wandering around the Rio Grande Depot looking at exhibits when I ran into Dr. Ellis Shipp.
You may have heard of her. She was the second female physician in Utah. Married at 19 to Milford Shipp, she supported her three children on her own after her husband left to serve an LDS mission in Europe.
She maintained a cow, an orchard and a garden plot. She also sewed and took in a student boarder. But all the while, she longed for an education.
So she developed her own intensive plan of study, rising every morning at 4 a.m. to put in three hours of study before her children awoke. She read poetry, history, English, hygiene and health.
When her homesick sister wife, Margaret, returned from Woman's Medical College in Philadelphia, Ellis decided to take her place.
Dr. Shipp has such an illustrious history that I was excited to chat with her for a few minutes. She told me going to Philadelphia was difficult.
"It was only when I immersed myself in study and realized how perfect the body was, how the different systems meshed, that I was able to concentrate. I studied very hard, and it seemed to be one grand design. Milford and Maggie both sent me money, but I had to be very careful. My professors were very complimentary, but in the springtime, I wasn't feeling well."
One of her professors, a heart specialist, told her she needed rest and should go home and forget about being a doctor. So she went home to Utah and rested that Summer. When she felt better, she realized that becoming a physician was the biggest desire of her "tenacious soul."
There were two problems - medical school was expensive, and she was pregnant. Her inner convictions remained strong. "I knew the trying ways of strict economy and could endure cold and hunger and, yes, the mortal sufferings of motherhood which in Maytime would come inevitably to me. My faith had driven every fear and dread from out my soul, and all I lacked was Milford's word to go."
On the morning of Sept. 26, 1876, her husband scanned the morning news and announced that the next day missionaries and students were leaving on the train for Eastern cities. When she started to cry, she heard Milford's "kind voice" asking her if she wanted to go on the same train.
Happily, she said she did. But the next morning, Milford grasped her hands in his and said, "I cannot give my sanction to such a momentous thing . . . the unwise thing to do."
Ellis jumped to her feet and spoke to her husband as she never had before. "Yesterday you said that I should go. I am going, going now!"
Although she felt bad for having said "such a disrespectful thing," she took the journey anyway. She missed her "dear husband" and her "darling children," but she succeeded in her quest, finishing her degree in 1878.
She returned to her family in Utah, and for the next 50 years, she practiced medicine, delivering 6,000 babies. She established a school of obstetrics for nurses and midwives, and over 500 women graduated from her school.
As a Mormon delegate, she attended the National Council of Women and gave talks about the care and training of children. At the same time, she met such illustrious women as Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony and Clara Barton and joined in the quest for women's suffrage.
Ellis lived an amazing life until she was 92. Her major hope was that all her efforts and sufferings had not been in vain.
They weren't. Oh, by the way, I discovered I was not talking to the real Ellis Shipp after all. It was in fact Helen Reeder, a docent at the LDS Museum of Church History and Art, in full pioneer dress, doing a marvelous impression. I hope you didn't miss it.