"Pioneer Doctor"
This is an excerpt about Mary Magdalene Haning Brooks, from "A Heritage of 75 Years of Healthcare"
In a document written by Anna Devlin, wife of John R. Sprague, the story of Mary Magdalene Haning Brooks - surely a pioneer female doctor in more than one sense - is recorded:
"The first doctor in the Pleasant Hill area in Alexander Township was Mary Magdalene Haning Brooks, the young wife of John Brooks, whom she married when she was seventeen years old. She had a diploma to practice medicine. She rode horseback far and wide to tend the sick, wearing a large cape of Camelot cloth which was waterproof as well as warm. Dr. Mary Magdalene was the mother of twelve children."
The record doesn't say when Dr. Mary Magdalene practiced, nor does it mention when or where she earned her "doctors diploma."
((According to "The Harris History", this diploma was still in the possession of her descendants in 1982.))
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