2259037Woman of the Century — Minta S. Davis

DAVIS, Miss Minta S. A., physician and surgeon, born in Johnstown, Pa., 31st October, 1864, of Welsh and English parents. Her father died in her twelfth year, leaving her mother, a younger sister and herself dependent upon the exertions of two brothers When seventeen years old she began to teach school, but she broke down physically at the end of the first term. Then followed a weary apprenticeship at anything that promised support, sewing, proof-reading, type-setting by day, and earnest work with her studies and writing at night. Her ill health turned her thoughts to the study of medicine. Her mother, a conservative English woman, looked coldly upon any divergence from the stereotyped work of woman. Her means were limited, but her brothers wished her to enter a profession, and she chose the study of medicine. At the request of two physicians, who had known the family for thirty MINTA S. A. DAVIS. years, her mother gave an unwilling consent In 1887 she disposed of what property she had and put her all into a medical education A few months later she entered the American Medical College in St. Louis, Mo. Shortly before her graduation came the terrible flood of Johnstown, Pa., and she hastened there to find her people and friends homeless. That calamity made serious inroads on her slender capital. The two physicians who were to help her were dead, but she finished her lectures and answered a call fur physicians from the Northwest. She settled in Salem, Ore., in June, 1890. By patience and industry she has established a fine practice, and was elected vice-president of the Oregon State Eclectic Medical Society.