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Female Firsts: Rebecca Lee Crumpler · Stuff Mom Never Told You

0:05
Speaker 1: Hey, this is Annie and Samantha. I'm welcome to Steff
0:07
Speaker 1: I've never told you production of iHeart Radio, and today
0:19
Speaker 1: we are once again thrilled and delighted to be joined
0:21
Speaker 1: by the wondrous and the very curious Eaves. Welcome Eaves. Hi,
0:28
Speaker 1: thank you for that introduction. Curious is a good I'm
0:32
Speaker 1: very happy with that. I like to I like that. Yeah,
0:35
Speaker 1: and it shines through in all of these topics you bring.
0:38
Speaker 1: But also we just had a delightful conversation about continents
0:43
Speaker 1: and oceans and are confusion around them. Uh So, I
0:48
Speaker 1: have to say I as we're moving into the holidays,
0:52
Speaker 1: it's a lot of stress. We were talking about all
0:54
Speaker 1: of our stress that we're experiencing at work and otherwise,
0:58
Speaker 1: and talking to you all calmed me down, and you're
1:01
Speaker 1: your thoughts about contents has given me something else to
1:04
Speaker 1: focus on. I appreciate it. That's nice of you. Like
1:09
Speaker 1: thinking about the trivial things in life. I think from
1:13
Speaker 1: the existential questions, I think it's a stress anxiety tactic
1:17
Speaker 1: as well as like sleep tactic to think on things
1:20
Speaker 1: that that makes you kind of just further into the
1:23
Speaker 1: rabbit hole of questions. So us talking about why does
1:26
Speaker 1: this happen? And then going down but then what did
1:28
Speaker 1: how did this come about? Becomes a whole question. But
1:31
Speaker 1: it distracts you well enough that it calms you down
1:33
Speaker 1: or make you angry. It made me angry, though, I
1:36
Speaker 1: will put the oceans conversation. I like why so we
1:39
Speaker 1: had different stress, get a little bit different. Well, I
1:46
Speaker 1: love it. I'm glad it. Maybe it woke me up.
1:49
Speaker 1: Here we go. Yeah, okay, there's an outlet for expression
1:53
Speaker 1: happening either way, which is probably probably a good thing,
1:57
Speaker 1: right probably Yeah, um so eves. This is our our
2:04
Speaker 1: last recording of with You. Do you have any any plans,
2:10
Speaker 1: anything you're excited about? You have such a good I
2:12
Speaker 1: remember last time we talked about New Year's you had
2:14
Speaker 1: such a good like perspective audit anything you're doing to
2:19
Speaker 1: deal with distress or have fun. I don't know if
2:22
Speaker 1: I have anything profound to say, if I ever do,
2:25
Speaker 1: but I don't know. I think I am really feeling
2:30
Speaker 1: a strong transition in the end of two this year,
2:34
Speaker 1: as I'm sure so many other people are. But it's
2:37
Speaker 1: one of those things where I don't know. I think
2:41
Speaker 1: it's a good time of the year to reflect and
2:45
Speaker 1: to consider what's coming up, and also to just be
2:48
Speaker 1: present at the time. So I honor all of the
2:52
Speaker 1: traditions and all of the habits that people have around
2:57
Speaker 1: this time of year, but I never have anything that
3:01
Speaker 1: I do solidly every single year, nothing that I stick to.
3:06
Speaker 1: So this year, I really really really just want to
3:10
Speaker 1: be by myself, um in New Years and at the
3:13
Speaker 1: end of the year, I'm really feeling a strong calling
3:16
Speaker 1: towards solitude. This year. December and like just the past
3:21
Speaker 1: month for me has been so full of travel and
3:27
Speaker 1: making new connections repairing I don't even know if repairing
3:31
Speaker 1: is the right word, but um, dealing with old connections, UM,
3:37
Speaker 1: new problems, lots of family changes and all of that.
3:43
Speaker 1: So I think I'm just really thinking about integrating everything
3:48
Speaker 1: is settling into some solitude and introspection at the end
3:53
Speaker 1: of this year. So maybe that's different than a lot
3:56
Speaker 1: of people because I know this is a huge time
3:58
Speaker 1: for celebration and like turn things up, but the volume
4:02
Speaker 1: knob is getting turned down, like it. Yeah, I like that. Yes, yes,
4:10
Speaker 1: that's about where I am too. So well, hopefully it'll
4:15
Speaker 1: be a good, good New Year's for all of us
4:17
Speaker 1: in in the new year. We'll look forward to continuing
4:20
Speaker 1: many of these female first Yeah, because they're always always
4:25
Speaker 1: so fascinating. Um, and we're we're curious, Smith and I
4:28
Speaker 1: are curious right along with you. So these are great.
4:30
Speaker 1: So who did you bring for us to discuss today? Ves,
4:34
Speaker 1: So today we're gonna be talking about Dr Rebecca Lee Crumpler.
4:38
Speaker 1: So she might be a person that a lot of
4:41
Speaker 1: people are familiar with because she has gotten a lot
4:44
Speaker 1: of shine and attention in her first she was the
4:48
Speaker 1: first black woman in the US to earn a medical degree,
4:51
Speaker 1: and her book Book of Medical Discourses is one of
4:54
Speaker 1: the first publications by a black American author, what the
5:00
Speaker 1: first medical texts that were published specifically. But she had
5:05
Speaker 1: a great life. Her story was super interesting. The reasons
5:10
Speaker 1: why she got into our work and why she sustained
5:12
Speaker 1: her work in the medical field. Um, we're super interesting.
5:15
Speaker 1: And at a time when things were really difficult for
5:17
Speaker 1: people who are trying to do black people, when black
5:20
Speaker 1: women specifically who were doing what she was doing, so
5:23
Speaker 1: really excited to get into her story. I know a
5:26
Speaker 1: lot of the time we talked about people who might
5:28
Speaker 1: be a little bit less recognized in the mainstream discourses,
5:33
Speaker 1: but I think it's important to what you also never
5:36
Speaker 1: know who anybody might have heard of before, But it's
5:39
Speaker 1: just important to talk about so many different people who
5:42
Speaker 1: were pioneers in their fields, no matter how much recognition
5:46
Speaker 1: they might have already gotten. Yes, yes, absolutely agree, And
5:50
Speaker 1: I think I had I had heard the name before,
5:52
Speaker 1: but I didn't know anything about the stories. So I'm
5:56
Speaker 1: very very glad to have learned about it and that
5:58
Speaker 1: you're going to share it with all of us today.
6:01
Speaker 1: Me too. So. She was born Rebecca Davis on February eighth,
6:05
Speaker 1: eighteen thirty one, in Delaware. At the time, Delaware was
6:09
Speaker 1: a slave state, but she was born free. Her parents
6:12
Speaker 1: were Absolute Davis and Matilda Weber, and it was her
6:16
Speaker 1: aunt in Pennsylvania who raised her. Her aunt would also hurt,
6:20
Speaker 1: she would care for people, other people besides Rebecca, and
6:24
Speaker 1: Rebecca later said in her book quote, I early conceived
6:27
Speaker 1: a liking four and sought every opportunity to be in
6:31
Speaker 1: a position to relieve the sufferings of others. That sentiment
6:36
Speaker 1: was what seemingly attributed to Rebecca's interest in the field.
6:40
Speaker 1: So she attended school in Massachusetts. So in eighteen fifty two,
6:46
Speaker 1: she married a man named wyat Lee and Charlestown, Massachusetts.
6:50
Speaker 1: She worked there as a nurse for several years, and
6:53
Speaker 1: she didn't train to be a nurse at any formal
6:56
Speaker 1: nursing school because that wasn't really a thing in the
6:58
Speaker 1: US at the time. But she says in her book
7:02
Speaker 1: that from eighteen fifty two to eighteen sixty she worked
7:04
Speaker 1: as a nurse under different doctors in Massachusetts. Those doctors
7:09
Speaker 1: recommended her to the folks at New England Female Medical College.
7:14
Speaker 1: So in eighteen sixty she became the first and only
7:18
Speaker 1: black American woman who was accepted to the New England
7:21
Speaker 1: Female Medical College in Boston. So for background, of course,
7:25
Speaker 1: by this time, some white American women had already gotten
7:29
Speaker 1: medical degrees. So we talked about this, and we've talked
7:32
Speaker 1: about this before in the show the context of first
7:34
Speaker 1: how people had access to be able to do what
7:36
Speaker 1: they were able to do to be pioneers in their fields.
7:40
Speaker 1: But before eighteen sixty five, there were a small amount
7:43
Speaker 1: of medical schools that did admit black students. Some of
7:46
Speaker 1: them were in the eastern United States, somewhere in the Midwest,
7:50
Speaker 1: but in the South and largely in the North. Black
7:52
Speaker 1: students were barred from medical schools, and the first black
7:56
Speaker 1: American physicians got their degrees abroad. It was a man
8:01
Speaker 1: named Samuel Gregory who founded the New England Female Medical
8:05
Speaker 1: College in eighteen forty eight, and it was the first
8:07
Speaker 1: institution in the US to train women in medicine. So
8:10
Speaker 1: she got a scholarship to attend the school, but her
8:13
Speaker 1: husband did get sick, her husband whitet, so she had
8:17
Speaker 1: to take a leave from school to care for him.
8:20
Speaker 1: But he did end up dying of tuberculosis in April
8:23
Speaker 1: of eighteen sixty three, and she did act to re
8:26
Speaker 1: enroll after that, although the administrators there did give her
8:29
Speaker 1: some trouble because of the amount of time that she
8:34
Speaker 1: had spent on her work. But she did end up
8:36
Speaker 1: graduating from the school and became a doctress of medicine
8:39
Speaker 1: doctor of medicine. But what they said was doctress, and
8:45
Speaker 1: it just sounds I guess, it sounds so serious and
8:48
Speaker 1: it sounds a little bit more cool to say doctress
8:50
Speaker 1: even though it is gendered, maybe because it's sounding a
8:53
Speaker 1: little bit like dominatrix to me. The suffix on the
8:56
Speaker 1: end there. On March one, eighteen sixty for that's when
9:01
Speaker 1: she graduated from the school. So she was thirty three
9:03
Speaker 1: years old when she got her degree. And in eighteen
9:06
Speaker 1: seventy three, the New England Female Medical College merged with
9:09
Speaker 1: Boston University. The school closed due to some troubles that
9:12
Speaker 1: was having, but that made Dr Rebecca who was Rebecca
9:16
Speaker 1: Lee at the time because of her marriage, Dr Rebecca Lee,
9:19
Speaker 1: the first and only black woman to get a medical
9:21
Speaker 1: degree from the school. So soon after getting her degree,
9:26
Speaker 1: she began practicing medicine and Boston, and in eighteen sixty
9:32
Speaker 1: five she married Arthur Crumpler in Boston. So Arthur was
9:37
Speaker 1: previously enslaved but had escaped slavery. He served in the
9:42
Speaker 1: Union Army during the Civil War and he later worked
9:46
Speaker 1: as a porter. So pause on this. First of all,
9:50
Speaker 1: Arthur Crumpler's story sounds so interesting too. I would love
9:55
Speaker 1: to know more about his story. Um, I'm not sure.
9:58
Speaker 1: I don't know it. I'm not sure how my more
10:00
Speaker 1: information is available about it, but I will definitely be
10:03
Speaker 1: saying seeing what else is out there about him, because
10:06
Speaker 1: it's so interesting when you read where we often talk
10:09
Speaker 1: about these people, but the other people who were in
10:11
Speaker 1: their lives, their families, their spouses, their children, all that
10:14
Speaker 1: have their own stories. Um that maybe in some way
10:18
Speaker 1: related to the person we're talking about story or maybe
10:22
Speaker 1: something completely different, but they may have been inspired by
10:25
Speaker 1: the person we're talking about, like legacy and history, which
10:28
Speaker 1: I feel like are also provide lots of other fascinating
10:32
Speaker 1: avenues to go down when we're learning about these people
10:34
Speaker 1: and the things that they did. But anyway, that's an aside.
10:52
Speaker 1: Dr Rebecca she ended up being drawn to Richmond, Virginia
10:56
Speaker 1: when the Civil War ended. So the third teen Amendment
11:01
Speaker 1: to the Constitution was ratified in eighteen sixty five, which
11:04
Speaker 1: abolished slavery in the US on paper, although it did
11:08
Speaker 1: continue in practice in places, of course. But the Freeman's
11:11
Speaker 1: Bureau of Government agency that was established during reconstruction in
11:15
Speaker 1: the South, that was the postwar era UM that aimed
11:18
Speaker 1: to help formerly enslaved people who were emancipated in the
11:22
Speaker 1: aftermath of the war. So Dr Crumpler served as a
11:26
Speaker 1: physician with a Bureau Enrichment and she worked with other
11:30
Speaker 1: charitable groups there as well to help people who were impoverished,
11:33
Speaker 1: who were displaced and dispossessed, and she called it in
11:37
Speaker 1: her work she called it the quote proper field for
11:39
Speaker 1: real missionary work. Of course, she faced challenges there. Hospitals,
11:45
Speaker 1: it was said, wouldn't take her patients, and pharmacists wouldn't
11:48
Speaker 1: fill her prescriptions, but it was clear that that was
11:51
Speaker 1: the work that Dr Crumpler wanted to do. Um She
11:55
Speaker 1: was really interested in helping women and specifically children in
11:59
Speaker 1: her work, as will find if you read her book.
12:02
Speaker 1: But she was really involved in the work there. She
12:05
Speaker 1: did with her husband up going back to Boston in
12:08
Speaker 1: the late eighteen sixties and continue to practice medicine. So
12:12
Speaker 1: they moved to Beacon Hill, which was a mostly black
12:16
Speaker 1: neighborhood at the time, and their house was on Joy Street.
12:19
Speaker 1: Dr Crumpler even saw patients in her house for treatment,
12:24
Speaker 1: but in eighteen eighty later on they moved to Hyatt Park,
12:28
Speaker 1: which was another neighborhood in Boston, and she stopped practicing medicine.
12:33
Speaker 1: There were since his records that year that listed her
12:37
Speaker 1: occupation as quote keeping house um They the couple did
12:42
Speaker 1: have a daughter whose name was Lizzie Sinclair Crumpler, but
12:46
Speaker 1: she stopped showing up on census records and this thought
12:48
Speaker 1: that she died young. So in eight three she published
12:52
Speaker 1: the book that I mentioned earlier, a book of medical
12:55
Speaker 1: discourses in two parts. That book is available to read
12:58
Speaker 1: online because it's in the public domain, and like I said,
13:01
Speaker 1: it's also considered one of the first published medical text
13:04
Speaker 1: written by a Black American author. And it is full
13:08
Speaker 1: of quotes that I love. UM, but I think gives
13:12
Speaker 1: really good insight into how Dr Crumpler thought, the things
13:16
Speaker 1: that motivated her work in the medical field, the reasons
13:21
Speaker 1: why she did them, some of her personal proclivities, like
13:24
Speaker 1: her commitment to Christianity was very clear in the work
13:27
Speaker 1: that she did, and the interest that she had in marriage,
13:31
Speaker 1: which she really believed was the divine institution. Um. The
13:35
Speaker 1: first part of the book is about the cause, prevention,
13:38
Speaker 1: and the cure of illnesses that children have from infancy
13:41
Speaker 1: to five years old, and the second part is about
13:44
Speaker 1: the same and women in youth, as well as quote
13:48
Speaker 1: miscellaneous information concerning the life and growth of beings and
13:52
Speaker 1: quote the beginning of womanhood. UM. I'm not quite sure
13:56
Speaker 1: of the backstory of the publication on this book, but
14:00
Speaker 1: it is really kind of a catch all, a comprehensive text. UM.
14:03
Speaker 1: I do really I'm curious about what the pitch was
14:06
Speaker 1: for this book, but um, it's dedicated um, which I
14:12
Speaker 1: think is really interesting. She dedicates the book to quote
14:15
Speaker 1: mother's nurses and all who may desire to mitigate the
14:18
Speaker 1: afflictions of the human race. So she had this really
14:21
Speaker 1: grand outlook on the work did that she did, but
14:26
Speaker 1: not in a way that was delusional, of course, it's
14:28
Speaker 1: in a way where it's like you're truly doing the
14:30
Speaker 1: work of saving lives, saving people and hopefully preventing the
14:33
Speaker 1: illnesses that come to people, um that may shorten their
14:39
Speaker 1: lives or make their lives um less well, or you know,
14:46
Speaker 1: may cause them to die. So she she was serious
14:49
Speaker 1: about her work, which was clear and the work that
14:51
Speaker 1: she did, and also very passionate about it. She stated
14:53
Speaker 1: in the book that she wanted it to be simple,
14:56
Speaker 1: She wanted it to be comprehensive and to not have
14:59
Speaker 1: a lot of technical jargon in it, therefore making the
15:02
Speaker 1: book accessible to a lot of people who didn't necessarily
15:06
Speaker 1: have a ton of knowledge and medical information, but had
15:10
Speaker 1: an interest in it and an enthusiasm for it. Which obviously,
15:16
Speaker 1: medical information is something that it is beneficial for all
15:19
Speaker 1: of us to know because it is related to our bodies.
15:22
Speaker 1: It is related to keeping our bodies well and keeping
15:24
Speaker 1: us alive, because obviously survival is one of our points
15:27
Speaker 1: of being here. You know, the way that she clearly
15:32
Speaker 1: wanted to spread this information far and wide and had
15:37
Speaker 1: these kind of higher, honorable aims for the work that
15:41
Speaker 1: she was doing is really fascinating to me, and that
15:44
Speaker 1: she was still upfront about it. But the topics in
15:46
Speaker 1: the book included breastfeeding, teething, how young women should marry,
15:52
Speaker 1: treatments for various things like rheumatism and hemorrhoids, and all
15:56
Speaker 1: of that. And of of course, as so many of
16:00
Speaker 1: these things that we're reading from the nineteenth century, some
16:03
Speaker 1: of the information is going to be outdated, some of
16:05
Speaker 1: it's not going to align with some of the principles
16:08
Speaker 1: that we have depending on where we live in the world.
16:11
Speaker 1: Obviously our principles are different, um, But depending on your
16:14
Speaker 1: culture and the nation you live in, and some of
16:16
Speaker 1: the values that you hold UM may not stand up medically.
16:20
Speaker 1: Things have progressed since then, of course, and then there
16:24
Speaker 1: may be things that you just disagree with or things
16:27
Speaker 1: that may surprise you that you might agree with based
16:31
Speaker 1: on your own personal values. Maybe you agree with some
16:33
Speaker 1: of the things she says about who you should marry,
16:35
Speaker 1: which I'm gonna get to in a second way. So
16:38
Speaker 1: she talks at the end of the first part about
16:41
Speaker 1: black people who do so much work and take care
16:44
Speaker 1: of so many other people and things without regard to
16:47
Speaker 1: their own health. In a way, she encourages self care,
16:50
Speaker 1: intending to our wellness basically for longevity. So I thought
16:53
Speaker 1: that was just really prescient because it's something that we're
16:56
Speaker 1: talking about in current conversations so frequently, so frequently than
17:00
Speaker 1: in fact it's guy and stale in so many ways,
17:02
Speaker 1: it has become a buzzword that people might tune out,
17:05
Speaker 1: but it is relevant to what we're talking about. And
17:08
Speaker 1: I love when moments like that happened because it's like
17:10
Speaker 1: almost like you can just take a chunk of what
17:13
Speaker 1: she said and just placed it in today and you'll
17:15
Speaker 1: be like, Oh, that was totally ri in twenties twenty two,
17:17
Speaker 1: But no, it wasn't. It was three. Because she's talking
17:21
Speaker 1: about the ills that productivity and caring about external over
17:27
Speaker 1: internal can have on a person's health, how this grind
17:33
Speaker 1: and the hustle, And I think at one point she
17:36
Speaker 1: says for black men caring about horses more than the
17:39
Speaker 1: caring for the horses better than they care for themselves.
17:43
Speaker 1: Um So, even though that thing may not be horses,
17:46
Speaker 1: you know, other things in other ways, we say, we
17:48
Speaker 1: are so focused on and dedicated to this work culture
17:53
Speaker 1: that doesn't sustain us in ways that attuning to our
17:57
Speaker 1: health would specifically. Um So, some of the quotes that
18:01
Speaker 1: were in the book she says as related to how
18:06
Speaker 1: women should marry, and of course she's thinking about this
18:09
Speaker 1: in a heterosexual like. She's talking about women who want
18:12
Speaker 1: to marry men. She says, quote, it is best for
18:14
Speaker 1: a young woman to accept a suitor who is respectable, vigorous, industrious,
18:20
Speaker 1: and but a few years her senior, if not of
18:23
Speaker 1: an equal age. End quote. So now can you imagine
18:27
Speaker 1: limiting the field of suitors to those specific positions and
18:31
Speaker 1: the difficulties that people I'm not in the dating world,
18:34
Speaker 1: but the difficult the tease that I hear about people
18:36
Speaker 1: having out of the field that is larger than that.
18:39
Speaker 1: Today they're talking about I need more options, according to
18:41
Speaker 1: the doctor Crumpler, less options. Okay, less options, limited field,
18:48
Speaker 1: because this is what's best for you. But um you know,
18:51
Speaker 1: so that's what she saists to take it as you
18:52
Speaker 1: take it, take it as you may, which is vigorous,
18:55
Speaker 1: supposed to be vigorous. That's a type of the Okay, Okay,
19:04
Speaker 1: that's what I'm thinking, just wondering. But I guess it
19:08
Speaker 1: could also relate to other physical prowess too. So like
19:12
Speaker 1: your metabolism is high, metabolism, I have sh standards. It
19:19
Speaker 1: must be vigorous. They didn't have credit scores by fanc
19:27
Speaker 1: This medical treat dis stills me a vigorous man. Everything
19:31
Speaker 1: I was on board with until like, Okay, I gotta
19:33
Speaker 1: felt what vigorous though? I need. I need to know
19:36
Speaker 1: where we go, how we go about them. Okay, keep going.
19:40
Speaker 1: I need more of her standards here. We need a
19:42
Speaker 1: part two to this book, is what you're saying. Yes.
19:45
Speaker 1: So she also talks about how thousands of children died
19:49
Speaker 1: deaths that could have been prevented. So she says, quote
19:53
Speaker 1: people do not wish to feel that death ensues through
19:56
Speaker 1: neglect on their part. Indeed, they speak of consumption, cholera
20:00
Speaker 1: and phantom diphtheria, et cetera, as if sent by God
20:04
Speaker 1: to destroy our infants. They seem to forget that there
20:07
Speaker 1: is a cause for every ailment, and that it may
20:10
Speaker 1: be in their power to remove it. My chief desire
20:14
Speaker 1: in presenting this book is to impress upon somebody's mind
20:17
Speaker 1: the possibilities of prevention end quote. So she's saying that
20:23
Speaker 1: you have the power and the tools to gather some
20:26
Speaker 1: of this information to learn through practice. And there are
20:30
Speaker 1: other people like me, like Rebet Dr Crumpler, who can
20:33
Speaker 1: give you some of these information that the solutions and
20:37
Speaker 1: the treatments to some of the things that you're dealing with,
20:40
Speaker 1: so that we do not have to deal as much
20:42
Speaker 1: with infant mortality. Um. And obviously there are limits to
20:47
Speaker 1: that and what we can learn ourselves, and that's why
20:49
Speaker 1: we have the support and information available to us in books.
20:52
Speaker 1: But I did uh really appreciate that she said that
20:56
Speaker 1: some of these things are not out of your hands,
20:58
Speaker 1: they are not all divinely inspired per se, even though
21:01
Speaker 1: she was a practicing Christian woman, um, And that we
21:05
Speaker 1: can take some of these matters into our own hands
21:07
Speaker 1: and find solutions for them. So for the last school
21:11
Speaker 1: I will share from the book, she says women doctors
21:14
Speaker 1: or more properly speaking, doctresses of medicine, although usually treated
21:20
Speaker 1: with less courtesy by doctors are nevertheless by them considered
21:24
Speaker 1: to be in their proper sphere in the confinement room
21:28
Speaker 1: and nursery. So she does end quote. So she does
21:30
Speaker 1: talk about some of the social difficulties that she had
21:37
Speaker 1: and being a woman doctor, although she doesn't really talk
21:39
Speaker 1: about too much of that of her own experience that
21:41
Speaker 1: she had working in the field. We would need an
21:45
Speaker 1: autobiography for a little bit more of that information, and
21:47
Speaker 1: we don't have a lot of that, but she talks
21:50
Speaker 1: about it, and of course it was a time when
21:54
Speaker 1: women were expected to be in certain realms. It was
21:58
Speaker 1: men who were thought of as people could be practiced doctors,
22:02
Speaker 1: and that she was up against some of those things
22:05
Speaker 1: when she was working. So later in her life she
22:08
Speaker 1: and her husband were active members of the twelfth Baptist
22:11
Speaker 1: Church in Boston, but she died of fibroid tumors when
22:15
Speaker 1: she was sixty four years old in eight Arthur Crumpler,
22:19
Speaker 1: her husband, died later in nineteen ten. She and her
22:23
Speaker 1: husband were buried in anonymous graves in Fairview Cemetery in
22:27
Speaker 1: High Park, but later on, much later on, there was
22:31
Speaker 1: a fundraiser for headstones for Dr Crumpler and her husband,
22:35
Speaker 1: which was an effort that was spearheaded by Vicki Gaul
22:38
Speaker 1: who was president of the Friends of the High Park Library,
22:43
Speaker 1: And so they ended up getting those gravestones put up
22:45
Speaker 1: for the two of them in which is a long
22:47
Speaker 1: time after period that both of them a century. So
22:52
Speaker 1: her home in Beacon Hill is featured on the Boston
22:55
Speaker 1: Women's Heritage Trail, But there isn't any photo or description
22:58
Speaker 1: of her, drawing of her any like that that we
23:00
Speaker 1: know of that is her for sure. But in there
23:05
Speaker 1: was a piece in the Boston Daily Globe that'said that
23:07
Speaker 1: she was quote a very pleasant and intellectual woman, and
23:11
Speaker 1: that she was quote tall and straight, with light brown
23:14
Speaker 1: skin and gray hair. So unfortunately we don't have any
23:18
Speaker 1: pictures of her to put with the words that she
23:20
Speaker 1: wrote in her book, but we can draw a sort
23:23
Speaker 1: of characterization of her through the words that she wrote
23:28
Speaker 1: in her book. That's the story of Dr Rebecca Lee Klensler.
23:47
Speaker 1: I mean, I was just struck so many times by
23:48
Speaker 1: what you said earlier. Eves. There so many instances where
23:52
Speaker 1: if you kind of rephrase it, we're still having these
23:54
Speaker 1: conversations today about self care, about like putting productivity of
23:59
Speaker 1: war the external first and burnout and even when it
24:02
Speaker 1: comes to women and women of color in medicine. We
24:08
Speaker 1: talked about burnout in that fields specifically, UM and how
24:12
Speaker 1: bad it is, and I can only imagine being the
24:15
Speaker 1: only black woman that it was just like amped weigh up,
24:21
Speaker 1: but having this this passion, as you say, and like
24:23
Speaker 1: clearly just really caring and wanting to make this information
24:29
Speaker 1: more accessible. UM. It's another great example of having a
24:33
Speaker 1: woman mentor of her aunts. UM. I don't know. There's
24:37
Speaker 1: just so many through lines of things we have talked
24:40
Speaker 1: about before that we are still talking about in this
24:42
Speaker 1: story and speaking of our aunt, I feel like when
24:45
Speaker 1: she was talking about for the women out there who
24:48
Speaker 1: are doing these things anyway, here's some help for you,
24:50
Speaker 1: it feels like it was almost like an ode to her,
24:52
Speaker 1: because we know that that's what she was doing. Her
24:54
Speaker 1: aunt was out there trying to care for people and
24:57
Speaker 1: kind of the doctor of that area for for that community.
25:01
Speaker 1: So she's like, here, here, I want to do this,
25:03
Speaker 1: just in case there's more people like my aunt. You
25:05
Speaker 1: have this information right here for you, and yes, this
25:08
Speaker 1: is curable, not just oh no, sorry, guy doesn't want
25:11
Speaker 1: them to live. Like there are things that we can
25:14
Speaker 1: do and he I who just went through all of
25:17
Speaker 1: the pains, staking studying, dealing with people who said I
25:21
Speaker 1: couldn't do it or I shouldn't do it. I've done this,
25:23
Speaker 1: and here's the information for you, so you don't have
25:25
Speaker 1: to go through what I just did or what my
25:27
Speaker 1: aunt had to go through. And it feels like kind
25:30
Speaker 1: of like a love letter and owed to her aunt
25:32
Speaker 1: a little bit. Yeah, I really like that way of
25:36
Speaker 1: thinking about it. Yeah, and that just made me think
25:39
Speaker 1: of two of some of the treatments that are in
25:42
Speaker 1: the book. I really want to try. Wait they were
25:49
Speaker 1: I want to read it. I'm very curious. Yeah, they
25:52
Speaker 1: have one first sore throat um I can't remember what
25:55
Speaker 1: it was. We put a warm cloth with something on
25:58
Speaker 1: it over your throat when you go to sleep or
26:00
Speaker 1: something like that. And they had other furious elements and
26:03
Speaker 1: then one of which was soft bones and rheumatism. And yeah,
26:06
Speaker 1: I think they had some for period. She had some
26:08
Speaker 1: for period cramps in there. She had several things in
26:12
Speaker 1: there that I was like, oh, this is very it's
26:17
Speaker 1: very useful. So it wasn't it was a text that
26:20
Speaker 1: wasn't just meant to proselytize over her ideas, but something
26:24
Speaker 1: that you could actually use, like put in your kitchen,
26:28
Speaker 1: you know, next to your cookbooks or you know, and
26:31
Speaker 1: wherever else you keep me right, that you could actually
26:35
Speaker 1: use in your household, keep it home on a daily basis,
26:38
Speaker 1: and just refer to yeah, yeah, because I mean, doctors
26:40
Speaker 1: weren't accessible and it could be days before you could
26:42
Speaker 1: get to one, I would think, and like traveling to
26:45
Speaker 1: get to a doctor. Shoot, it takes days for us
26:47
Speaker 1: to get an appointment now, so if not months, Um,
26:50
Speaker 1: so maybe I need that book. But yeah, but it's
26:53
Speaker 1: interesting because I wondered if the miscellaneous portion it was like,
26:55
Speaker 1: is that period? Are they talking about period? Is she
26:58
Speaker 1: trying not to say this is what happens when you
27:01
Speaker 1: go through puberty? Let me help you out. They said
27:05
Speaker 1: it in so many words, because you know, they were
27:06
Speaker 1: real wordy back there. I think she did use the
27:09
Speaker 1: word period in it, but there were definitely there was
27:11
Speaker 1: other terminology for it. Uh huh. And also while we're
27:15
Speaker 1: on the topic, I just wanted to also mention that,
27:17
Speaker 1: you know, just because she did. Of course, her achievements
27:21
Speaker 1: are completely notable, and she is a pioneer in her field,
27:25
Speaker 1: but there were other women, the women who weren't necessarily
27:29
Speaker 1: able to attend nursing schools because these institutions that were
27:34
Speaker 1: created by white men or even when they were black institutions,
27:37
Speaker 1: you know, doesn't necessarily validate or invalidate the work that
27:41
Speaker 1: other women were doing as nurses already before, who had
27:45
Speaker 1: all of this knowledge before in that field. I just
27:47
Speaker 1: want to call that out for sure before you in
27:50
Speaker 1: the episode. Yeah, yeah, yeah, And I mean going back
27:54
Speaker 1: to Samantha's point, That's why the dedication is so beautiful
27:57
Speaker 1: because it's like recognizing also the pretty much unnoticed or unrewarded, unseen,
28:04
Speaker 1: invisible work that these women were already doing, um to
28:08
Speaker 1: take care of their communities and people in them. So yeah,
28:12
Speaker 1: I love it. I do want to read it, um,
28:15
Speaker 1: I want to skim to it. I think it'd be cool.
28:19
Speaker 1: Let me know, if you try any of those put
28:22
Speaker 1: in your medicine cabinet to have it next to all
28:24
Speaker 1: of your wouldn't that be hilarious though? If you had
28:29
Speaker 1: somebody over and they're like, why do you have an
28:31
Speaker 1: eight hundreds book of medicine some of them yeah, yes, yes,
28:42
Speaker 1: and then they see like there's a chapter on finding
28:44
Speaker 1: the right the right husband, just to help you out here,
28:49
Speaker 1: just calm down, calm down. So oh my gosh, thank
28:57
Speaker 1: you as always for being here. Always a pleasure to
29:02
Speaker 1: have you. Looking forward to working more and continuing. O
29:08
Speaker 1: are the series and our friendship? Yes, call it into existing.
29:16
Speaker 1: Yeah we will, we will, and I I hope you
29:19
Speaker 1: have a lovely introspective solitude full it's not a word,
29:25
Speaker 1: but you know New Year's Yes you you too, yes, yes, yes, yes,
29:32
Speaker 1: Well where can the listeners find you? You can find
29:37
Speaker 1: me on Instagram at not Apologizing, on Twitter at Eves
29:42
Speaker 1: Jeff Coat and you can just look me up on
29:46
Speaker 1: my website, Eve's jeff Cote dot com. That's why v
29:50
Speaker 1: E s J E F F c O A T
29:55
Speaker 1: dot com and you can find everything from there. You
29:58
Speaker 1: can also hear me on many many other episodes here
30:02
Speaker 1: on Sminthy doing other female first in history. Yes, yes,
30:07
Speaker 1: so check all of that out if you haven't already, listeners,
30:10
Speaker 1: And yeah, we will see you in the new year.
30:13
Speaker 1: Maybe will actually like hang out in person? Yes, about
30:22
Speaker 1: it in the viewtime, listeners. If you would like to
30:24
Speaker 1: contact us, you can our emails Stephanie em and Stuff
30:27
Speaker 1: at iHeart media dot com. You can find us on
30:28
Speaker 1: Twitter at mom stuf podcast, or instagrate stuff I Never
30:31
Speaker 1: told You. Thanks, It's always so super producer, Christina, thank
30:33
Speaker 1: you and thanks to you for listening stuff I've Never
30:36
Speaker 1: told you this production I Hire Radio. For more podcast
30:37
Speaker 1: in my Heart Radio, you can check out the i
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Speaker 1: RT radio app, Apple Podcast wherever you listened to your
30:40
Speaker 1: favorite shows