Kate Pelham Newcomb

Last updated • 5 min readFrom Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia
Kate Pelham Newcomb
Born(1885-07-26)July 26, 1885
DiedMay 30, 1956(1956-05-30) (aged 70)
EducationUniversity of Buffalo
OccupationPhysician

Kate Pelham Newcomb (July 26, 1885 – May 30, 1956), or "Dr. Kate" as she was known to her community, was a physician in northern Wisconsin. She practiced medicine in and around Boulder Junction and Woodruff, Wisconsin, in the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s. In 1954 she gained national recognition from television producer Ralph Edwards and the NBC program This Is Your Life for inspiring the "Million Penny Parade", to raise funds for a new hospital.

Contents

Youth and education

Born in July 1885 to New York City attorney Thomas Walter Pelham (corporate counsel and later president of the Gillette Razor Company) and his wife Catherine Callahan Pelham, Kate Pelham spent the first years of her life in Wellington, Leoti, and Abilene, Kansas. After the death of her mother the family moved to Buffalo, New York. Pelham attended Public School 19, graduating in June 1900. [1] When her father initially refused to allow her to attend medical school, she became a teacher, serving grade schoolers in Buffalo's Public School 54, but in time he relented and allowed her to enroll in the University of Buffalo. Trained by Dr. Louise Hurrell and others, she entered medical school in September 1913. Pelham earned her M.D. in 1917, specializing in obstetrics. She completed an externship at the New York Infirmary for Indigent Women and Children (later the Lower Manhattan Hospital) on New York's lower east side, where she attended the home deliveries (Pelham would deliver some 800 children here) [2] of the Italian and Armenian women who had come to the infirmary for prenatal care. [3]

Medical practice

In December 1917 Pelham moved to an internship and residency at the Woman's Hospital in Detroit, Michigan. [4] Working alongside physicians Dr. Anna O'Dell, Dr. Grace Clark and Dr. Mary Haskins, Newcomb worked in a section of the hospital donated by Henry Ford that was dedicated to unwed mothers; in time the four women would open a private practice in pediatrics. [5]

During these years Pelham met and married auto plant worker William Ferman (Bill) Newcomb (1886-1961). After Bill Newcomb was diagnosed with lung disease, in 1922 the couple moved to Boulder Junction in northern Wisconsin in search of improved air quality. Kate Newcomb gave up her medical practice to care for her husband. Already frustrated with the medical establishment's inability to address her husband's health issues, after Newcomb's first child died during labor she lost faith in the medical profession. [6]

After nearly a decade in northern Wisconsin, Newcomb eventually met Minocqua physician Thomas Torpy. Noting the well-made bandages Newcomb had applied following a small mishap involving her young son (her second child, William Thomas, born 1928), Torpy suggested she consider returning to medicine. [7] Late in 1931, unable to reach a remote patient during adverse weather, Torpy asked Newcomb to make an emergency call on his behalf. The event prompted her to resume practicing medicine. She saw patients in her home, and kept office hours in various town halls. In 1942 she purchased a home in Woodruff, Wisconsin, and practiced from there for the remainder of her career.

The only physician serving a population of about 7,000, [8] Newcomb's practice extended to Manitowish Waters, Winchester, Winegar and Spider Lake, which meant hundreds of miles of travel every week. Over the course of her career Newcomb delivered between 3,000 and 4,000 children. [9] She is well-remembered for walking miles in snowshoes to get to patients who lived in remote areas; her Model T Ford was fitted with skis. Newcomb also served as a public health office, tackling issues like water pollution and the milk supply. [10]

The Million Penny Parade

Newcomb's practice was hobbled by the absence of any local hospital; the closest, Sacred Heart Hospital, was more than fifty miles away in Tomahawk. [11] Newcomb saw the need for a community hospital in Woodruff, and began raising funds for construction. In 1952, mathematics students at Woodruff-Arbor Vitae High School (many delivered by Newcomb), studying the concept of a "million", decided to hold a penny drive, and collect one million pennies to fund the hospital. Letters were mailed around the county, as area resort and summer camp owners, other businessmen and area families mailed appeals to contacts nationwide. The Chippewa at Lac du Flambeau, another community Newcombe served, contributed as well. Just over 100 days later, the goal was achieved, pennies being sent in from all forty-eight states. [12] On Memorial Day weekend, 1953, a Million Penny Parade celebrated the students’ success, and the donated pennies displayed in the school gym.

On March 17, 1954, the television program This Is Your Life celebrated Newcomb's career. Told she was being flown to a medical convention to honor Sir Alexander Fleming, a London physician who had improved penicillin, Newcomb found herself the subject of the popular show. [13] Host Ralph Edwards described Newcomb's plans to build a hospital and encouraged viewers to donate, and that week, some 274 pounds of mail arrived in Woodruff, containing more than 1.3 million pennies. [14] The 19-bed Lakeland Memorial Hospital, Necomb serving as chief of staff, opened in March 1954. A second Penny Parade was held in celebration. Ninety floats and fifteen marching bands followed Newcomb in the parade, which drew an audience of 25,000. Adele Comandini's 1956 biography, Doctor Kate, Angel on Snowshoes, was a New York Times bestseller. [15]

Final years and memorialization

In May 1956, Newcomb fell as she was exiting the clinic at the Lac du Flambeau Indian reservation. She died May 30, 1956, in St. Mary's hospital in Wausau, Wisconsin, at the age of 70 and is buried next to her husband at the Cemetery of the Pines in Boulder Junction, Vilas County, Wisconsin.

Newcomb has been the subject of memorialization in Wisconsin. In 1988, the Dr. Kate Newcomb Museum opened on the site of Newcomb's office. There, a 15' penny commemorates the Million Penny Parade. The Lakeland Memorial Hospital was in time supplanted by the Howard Young Medical Center, and the hospital became the Dr. Kate Convalescent Center. [16] The original hospital was razed in 2011, and the site redeveloped as the "Dr. Kate Park." [17] Wisconsin Media Lab included "Kate Newcomb: Doctor of the North Woods" among their animated series of Wisconsin Biographies. [18]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Minocqua, Wisconsin</span> Town in Wisconsin, United States

Minocqua is a town in northwestern Oneida County, Wisconsin, United States. The population was 4,414 as of 2018. The census-designated place of Minocqua and the unincorporated community of Rantz are both located in the town. Minocqua is commonly referred to as "The Island City."

Woodruff is a town in Oneida County, Wisconsin, United States. The population was 2,055 at the 2010 census. The census-designated place of Woodruff is located in the town.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Emory University School of Medicine</span> Medical school in Atlanta, Georgia, US

The Emory University School of Medicine is the graduate medical school of Emory University and a component of Emory’s Robert W. Woodruff Health Sciences Center. Emory University School of Medicine traces its origins back to 1915 when the Atlanta Medical College, the Southern Medical College (1878), and the Atlanta School of Medicine merged.

Spartanburg Regional Healthcare System(SRHS) is one of South Carolina's largest healthcare systems. SRHS draws patients primarily from the areas of Spartanburg, Cherokee, Union, and Greenville counties (all located in the Piedmont region of South Carolina), as well as Rutherford and Polk counties (located in western North Carolina). Spartanburg General Hospital was organized under the authority of the South Carolina General Assembly in 1917. It officially became the Spartanburg Regional Health Services District, Inc., a political subdivision of the State of South Carolina, by the charter granted by the Secretary of State of South Carolina on May 1, 1995.

Lisa Sanders is an American physician, medical author and journalist, and associate professor of internal medicine and education at Yale School of Medicine. In 2002, she began writing a column for The New York Times called Diagnosis, that covered medical mystery cases. She is an attending physician at Yale-New Haven Hospital. Her column was the inspiration for the television series House M.D., with Yale-New Haven Hospital serving as the model for Princeton-Plainsboro Hospital in the series. Sanders worked as a consultant on the show. In 2019, Netflix aired the program Diagnosis, featuring a selection of cases from her column.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kate Campbell Hurd-Mead</span> American gynecologist

Kate Campbell Hurd-Mead was a pioneering feminist and obstetrician who promoted the role of women in medicine. She wrote A History of Women in Medicine: From the Earliest of Times to the Beginning of the Nineteenth Century in 1938. She was born in Danville, Quebec, Canada, and died in Haddam, Connecticut, United States.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Anita Newcomb McGee</span> American physician (1864–1940)

Anita Rosalie Newcomb McGee was an American physician who is remembered for her work with the United States military.

<i>Strange Lady in Town</i> 1955 film by Mervyn LeRoy

Strange Lady in Town is a 1955 American Western film directed by Mervyn LeRoy and starring Greer Garson. She plays a doctor who plans to introduce modern techniques of medicine to old Santa Fe in 1880, but is opposed by an established doctor played by Dana Andrews.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mary Stone (doctor)</span> Chinese medical doctor

Mary Stone, also known as Shi Meiyu, was a doctor of medicine graduated from the University of Michigan. She founded Danforth Memorial Hospital in Kiukiang.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bertha E. Reynolds</span> American physician

Bertha E. Reynolds, known in her community as "Dr. Bertha," was a rural medical doctor in south central Wisconsin, and one of the state's first licensed female physicians, practicing medicine in and around Lone Rock and Avoca from 1902 to 1953.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Myra Adele Logan</span> American physician, surgeon and anatomist

Myra Adele Logan is known as the first African American female physician, surgeon, and anatomist to perform a successful open-heart surgery. Following this accomplishment, Logan focused her work on children's heart surgery and was involved in the development of the antibiotic Aureomycin which treated bacterial, viral, and rickettsial diseases with the majority of her medical practice done at the Harlem Hospital in New York. Logan attended medical school during the pre–Civil Rights era. The majority of black female physicians in this time period were forced to attend segregated schools. Earning a medical degree as an African American woman during this time period was extremely difficult.

<i>Code Black</i> (TV series) American medical drama television series (2015–2018)

Code Black is an American medical drama television series created by Michael Seitzman that premiered on CBS on September 30, 2015. It takes place in an overcrowded and understaffed emergency room in Los Angeles, California, and is based on a documentary by Ryan McGarry. On May 16, 2016, the show was renewed for a 13-episode second season, which premiered on September 28, 2016. On November 14, 2016, CBS added three more episodes, to bring the total to 16.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sakaye Shigekawa</span> American physician

Sakaye Shigekawa was an American physician who specialized in obstetrics. Born to Japanese-American parents, she was imprisoned and forced to live and work at an internment camp in California, providing medical care to fellow Japanese-American internees during World War II. She completed her training in Chicago before returning to Los Angeles in 1948, where she practiced for more than 50 years.

The Evening Dispensary for Working Women and Girls was an innovative American health care service at the turn of the twentieth century. As a public dispensary, it provided "outpatient medical treatment and advice to patients, in contrast to the inpatient service provided by hospitals". It offered medical treatment for poor women, educated the public on health matters, and provided female medical students with an opportunity to learn and gain experience.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Elizabeth Bass</span> American physician

Mary Elizabeth Bass was an American physician, educator and suffragist. She was the first of two women to become faculty members at the medical school of Tulane University along with Edith Ballard. Bass worked to promote the efforts of women as physicians. She worked at Tulane for thirty years.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kate Breckenridge Karpeles</span> American medical doctor (1887-1941)

Kate Breckenridge Karpeles was an American medical doctor. She was the first woman to be appointed a contract surgeon by the United States Army, during World War I, and she served as president of the American Medical Women's Association.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Harriet P. Dustan</span> American physician

Harriet Pearson Dustan (1920–1999) was an American physician who is known for her pioneering contributions to effective detection and treatment of hypertension. She was the first woman to serve on the Board of Governors of the American Board of Internal Medicine.

Myra King Merrick was the first female medical doctor in the US state of Ohio.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Leah Lowenstein</span> American nephrologist, academic administrator, and cellist

Leah Miriam Lowenstein was an American nephrologist, academic administrator, and cellist. In 1982, she became the first woman dean of a co-educational, medical school in the United States upon her appointment at Jefferson Medical College. Lowenstein was previously associate dean and professor of medicine and biochemistry at the Boston University School of Medicine. She served in the Carter administration as a medical advisor to the Assistant Secretary for Health. Lowenstein was an advocate for women in medicine.

Kimberly Dyan Manning is an American physician. She currently serves as a Professor of Medicine as well as the Associate Chair of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion for the Department of Medicine at Emory University School of Medicine in Atlanta, Georgia. Manning has been recognized at the national level for her mentorship and teaching as well as her blogging and public speaking. She is the winner of the ACGME Parker J. Palmer Courage To Teach Award, the Evangeline Papageorge Award, and her blog “Reflections of a Grady Doctor” was named as one of the top four medical blogs by “O” The Oprah Magazine.

References

  1. Comandini, Adele (1956). Doctor Kate, Angel on Snowshoes; the Story of Kate Pelham Newcomb. New York: Rinehart. p. 19. hdl:2027/mdp.39015065776836.
  2. "Sheboygan Press". May 31, 1956.
  3. Comandini. Doctor Kate, Angel on Snowshoes. pp. 49–50.
  4. Ironwood Daily Globe. December 5, 1969.{{cite news}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)
  5. Comandini. Doctor Kate, Angel on Snowshoes. pp. 60–61.
  6. Comandini. Doctor Kate, Angel on Snowshoes. p. 177.
  7. Comandini. Doctor Kate, Angel on Snowshoes. p. 176.
  8. McCann, Dennis. "Dr. Kate's Parade Marches On". Archived from the original on August 11, 2014. Retrieved August 7, 2014.
  9. The Lakeland Times. July 6, 2012.{{cite news}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)
  10. Comandini. Doctor Kate, Angel on Snowshoes. p. 205.
  11. Comandini. Doctor Kate, Angel on Snowshoes. p. 190.
  12. "Changing the Face of Medicine: Celebrating America's Women Physicians" . Retrieved August 7, 2014.
  13. Thayer, Earl R (Spring 2005). "First in their class: Wisconsin's pioneering women physicians". Wisconsin Academy Review. 51 (2).
  14. Hollatz, Tom (August 31, 2012). "Angel on Snowshoes". The Lakeland Times. Retrieved August 7, 2014.
  15. "Adult New York Times Best Seller Lists for 1956".
  16. "Former Lakeland Memorial Hospital to be razed". The Lakeland Times. June 7, 2011.
  17. Burton, Kailey (July 30, 2012). "Remembering an 'Angel on Snowshoes'". WJFW.COM.
  18. "Wisconsin Biographies". Wisconsin Media Lab.

Bibliography