Heritage Snapshot: Part 198

Lyra E. George, MD, arrived in Loma Linda in 1911 with her husband, William A. George, MD. “Wil” had been Dean of the first Seventh-day Adventist School of Medicine, the American Medical Missionary College, in Battle Creek, Michigan. After caring for her young family (1914), Dr. Lyra spent the next 17 years, directing the maternity service at the Loma Linda Sanitarium and Hospital. In addition to being an obstetrician and gynecologist, she administered anesthesia to her husband’s surgery patients. In the early days when she had night calls from the Sanitarium, Dr. Lyra would walk from her home on Colton Avenue (now Redlands Boulevard) as owls hooted from the pepper trees arched over Pepper Drive (now Anderson Street). Because hobos often camped along the railroad tracks, a night watchman would meet her on the south side of San Timoteo Creek and escort her to the Sanitarium. She earned $15 a week. Dr. Lyra often delivered babies by candlelight or lanterns hung from rafters in the homes of the Mexican-American barrios in the valley. When the institution bought an automobile, Ray Arnold, the Sanitarium's ingenious machinist, provided an electric light attached to the car by a long cord. Dr. Lyra also delivered babies in the adobe homes of Serrano Indians, now known as the San Manuel Band of Mission Indians, in Highland, California. Some of the baby girls were named Lyra. Another woman who impacted Loma Linda was Florence A. Keller, MD (Class of 1900, American Medical Missionary College). Before becoming a physician, Florence Armstrong graduated from the Nurses’ Training School at the Battle Creek Sanitarium. John Harvey Kellogg, MD, chose her for his scrub nurse. Following his advice, Florence became a surgeon. She went to Australia where she married Peter Martin Keller, MD, a physician at the new Adventist Sanitarium and Hospital in Sydney. At first, Australia denied Florence an opportunity to take the qualifying medical examinations because she was a woman and an American. Then Sir Maui Pomari, a former classmate at Battle Creek and a member of the Maori Royal Family, became Minister of Health in New Zealand, and arranged for Florence to take its qualifying board examinations. After conducting a country practice for five years, the Kellers moved to Auckland, New Zealand’s largest city. Again prejudice prevailed and Florence was not allowed to admit her patients to the hospital. So, she became an elected member of the Hospital and Charitable Aid Board, which had the governing supervision of hospitals. Then she went on to become the first woman surgeon in New Zealand. Florence Keller was a versatile woman. On a trip to the United States, a patient on the ocean liner developed a ruptured ectopic pregnancy. Because the ship’s doctor could not help, Florence performed surgery in the officers’ dining room. The patient did well. When Florence had car trouble on a trip to her parents’ farm in Idaho, she removed the carburetor, repaired it, and continued on her journey. There was little that could stop her. In the meantime, women comprised one-third of CME’s first class of six graduates in 1914. By 1915 enough women had become physicians to form the American Medical Women’s Association. In 1918 the “European War” (Later dubbed World War I) impacted CME. John Burden former business manager of the Loma Linda Sanitarium challenged Dr. Percy T. Magan. As would be expected he also echoed Ellen White’s counsel: “Now, Doctor, I want you to get busy and drum up about 40 ladies to enter the medical course the coming year…. If we are wise we will listen to what Sister White has written of late years, some of which was sent especially to Loma Linda…. Arouse the conferences to help to support them and you will see the school rise, and our medical work come to the front…. Get your good wife [Dr. Lillian Magan], Dr. Julia White, Dr. Mary McReynolds and send them out on a campaign to cover the entire United States at camp-meetings and arouse our sisters to come to the crisis as Esther did of old. Within two days Magan responded: “Everything you say in your letter about 40 young women for the medical course is true…. I am also in for putting a woman in charge of the obstetrics.” In 1918 Olive Santee-Smith, MD, became one of CME’s first graduates to accept an overseas mission appointment. She and her sister, Orpha L. Santee, MD, belonged to CME’s second graduating class, the Class of 1915. Even though “Dr. Olive” greatly desired to go overseas, the dangers of ocean travel during World War I briefly delayed her mission service. Two months before Armistice Day, however, she and her husband Frank, a registered nurse, arrived in Calcutta, India. Their first assignment was in Lahore where Dr. Olive cared for women and children in the Seventh-day Adventist hospital. In spite of language handicaps, she began medical practice within a week. In order to make house calls in surrounding villages, she rode on the handlebars of Frank’s bicycle. Eventually, Dr. Olive’s health deteriorated under the strain of work and hot weather. When the Smiths transferred to beautiful Bangalore, South India, Dr. Olive regained her health, and went on to serve with distinction. In 1919 Dr. Magan proposed that CME increase the percentage of female students. He told of his wife’s class at the American Medical Missionary College in Battle Creek with 14 women and 11 men. “I believe that a serious effort ought to be made to interest young women in our medical work for our homeland and foreign fields,” he said.