LAURA BECOMES AN OSTEOPATH: THE TOUR: ~INTRODUCTION~---the list of tour stops---other links---site navigation
We don't have much from Laura. If she wrote to her siblings much, then her letters tended not to be kept, and so far we don't have any letters written to her by her siblings. (Drat!!!) But I wanted to do a Tour for her, so in this Tour I'm tracing what we have about her journey to becoming an osteopath.
Why did Laura choose osteopathy? I don't know. I can think of three angles from which to attack the question: a) how osteopathy works, b) what would conform to Laura's strong religious beliefs, and c) what medical training was available to women at the time.
a) How osteopathy works
There were lots of ways to approach medicine in the early 1900s. There still are, but around 1900, some approaches were still pretty new, and there was no certainty as to which would last. The approaches that I can think of are osteopathy, chiropractic, mainstream medicine, and Christian Science. We've got three out of four of those among the Five Stokey Siblings: Laura for osteopathy, Fred and Alma for mainstream medicine, and Will and Eva for Christian Science.
Google AI says:
Osteopathy is a holistic, manual therapy focusing on the interconnected relationship between the body’s structure (bones, muscles, nerves, ligaments) and its function. It treats the whole person—not just symptoms—to relieve pain, improve mobility, and boost self-healing.
The American Osteopathic Associations webpage says:
From their first days of medical school, DOs are trained to look beyond your symptoms to understand how lifestyle and environmental factors impact your well-being. They practice medicine according to the latest science and technology, but also consider options to complement pharmaceuticals and surgery.
As part of their education, DOs receive special training in the musculoskeletal system, your body’s interconnected system of nerves, muscles and bones. By combining this knowledge with the latest advances in medical technology, they offer patients the most comprehensive care available in health care today.
By focusing on prevention and tuning into how a patient’s lifestyle and environment can impact their wellbeing. DOs strive to help their patients be truly healthy in body, mind and spirit — not just free of symptoms.
Honestly, all this doesn't communicate much to me. I asked my chiropractor about osteopathy, and he said (if I remember correctly; this was a couple of years ago) that the problem with it was that it was trying to do too much. My chiropractor knows what he can fix, and when I need to go to my primary care provider. Do osteopaths know what they can't fix? I don't know. I hope so!
Back in the early 1900s, however, there were far more problems that mainstream medicine couldn't fix, so looking for interconnections within the body might well have seemed like a very new and welcome idea. Laura spent time as a nurse, and that experience would probably have shown her that one part of the body could affect another. (Apologies if I sound simplistic about this. Biology and medicine are very weak points in my body of knowledge and understanding.)
b) Conformity to Laura's religious beliefs.
I can't say much about this. Laura was very religious, and my impression is that her medical education had a definite religious component. Maybe I'll find out more. The American Osteopathic Association's emphasis on health in body, mind, and spirit (not that that webpage would have been written yet back then) might well have appealed to her.
c) Medical training available to women at the time.
The first woman to earn a medical degree in the United States was Elizabeth Blackwell, in 1849 - over half a century before Laura attended osteopathy school. Also, Fred's first wife Mabel (before marriage) attended medical school with Fred. I don't know what Mabel's exact degree was, but she was there.
So Laura could have gone the mainstream route, but I imagine it would have been quite difficult. Money might have been a problem, too. Mabel had resources that Laura would not have had: there was some sort of scholarship fund for offspring of missionaries like Mabel, and I think her family had more money than the Stokeys did. I imagine, but don't know for sure, that a mainstream medical education would take longer to complete than an osteopathic education. Will was always generous with the checks for education, but there would have been a limit to what was available, and Laura might not have been happy about taking too much.
Additionally, the osteopathic school that Laura attended (the first in the United States) had a lot of women, as indicated by the list of people in Laura's graduating class. The school might well have been a more comfortable place for a woman.
As for what we have about Laura's journey to become a doctor...
After high school graduation, Laura spent some time as a nurse in Aultman Hospital in Canton. We've got an entry in the 1903 Canton city directory for that, and in August of that year Mama Margaret mentions Laura nursing typhoid patients at the hospital.
We have a letter in which Eva mentions Laura going to work for Deaconess in St. Louis, Missouri in October 1903. Laura's obituary says that she graduated from the Epworth Evangelistic Institute in St. Louis. Epworth and Deaconess are associated with each other. I don't know the details of the how the association worked in the early 1900s. Nothing tells us what Laura expected when she went to St. Louis - whether she went with the intention of attending the Epworth Evangelistic Institute, and at what point - either in Canton or in St. Louis - she started thinking about osteopathy as a career. We do have a 1907 item mentioning Laura as a visiting nurse at Deaconess/Epworth.
There's an article about the commencement ceremony at the American School of Osteopathy in Kirksville, Missouri in 1909, listing Laura as one of the graduates. Around that time she needed some sort of document signed by her siblings. It was surely related to her becoming an osteopath, but all Mama Margaret said about the document was that everybody needed to sign it.
Laura took the Ohio State Board exams for osteopathy in December of 1909, and got her certificate from the state in January of 1910.
That's the end of the journey, but I've added a couple of epilogues:
First, a letter in which Mama Margaret told Will that Laura had been very helpful with her (Mama Margaret's) health. (I'm betting it was a leg issue, but I don't know). It had to have felt good for this newly certified osteopath to be able to help her mother.
Second, the obituary for Laura that I mentioned above, since it gives a little (though of course not much as I'd like) clarity on what Laura was doing in St. Louis.
As is standard with the Tours, each stop in the Tour has links to the previous stop and the next stop in the Tour.
Why did Laura choose osteopathy? I don't know. I can think of three angles from which to attack the question: a) how osteopathy works, b) what would conform to Laura's strong religious beliefs, and c) what medical training was available to women at the time.
a) How osteopathy works
There were lots of ways to approach medicine in the early 1900s. There still are, but around 1900, some approaches were still pretty new, and there was no certainty as to which would last. The approaches that I can think of are osteopathy, chiropractic, mainstream medicine, and Christian Science. We've got three out of four of those among the Five Stokey Siblings: Laura for osteopathy, Fred and Alma for mainstream medicine, and Will and Eva for Christian Science.
Google AI says:
Osteopathy is a holistic, manual therapy focusing on the interconnected relationship between the body’s structure (bones, muscles, nerves, ligaments) and its function. It treats the whole person—not just symptoms—to relieve pain, improve mobility, and boost self-healing.
The American Osteopathic Associations webpage says:
From their first days of medical school, DOs are trained to look beyond your symptoms to understand how lifestyle and environmental factors impact your well-being. They practice medicine according to the latest science and technology, but also consider options to complement pharmaceuticals and surgery.
As part of their education, DOs receive special training in the musculoskeletal system, your body’s interconnected system of nerves, muscles and bones. By combining this knowledge with the latest advances in medical technology, they offer patients the most comprehensive care available in health care today.
By focusing on prevention and tuning into how a patient’s lifestyle and environment can impact their wellbeing. DOs strive to help their patients be truly healthy in body, mind and spirit — not just free of symptoms.
Honestly, all this doesn't communicate much to me. I asked my chiropractor about osteopathy, and he said (if I remember correctly; this was a couple of years ago) that the problem with it was that it was trying to do too much. My chiropractor knows what he can fix, and when I need to go to my primary care provider. Do osteopaths know what they can't fix? I don't know. I hope so!
Back in the early 1900s, however, there were far more problems that mainstream medicine couldn't fix, so looking for interconnections within the body might well have seemed like a very new and welcome idea. Laura spent time as a nurse, and that experience would probably have shown her that one part of the body could affect another. (Apologies if I sound simplistic about this. Biology and medicine are very weak points in my body of knowledge and understanding.)
b) Conformity to Laura's religious beliefs.
I can't say much about this. Laura was very religious, and my impression is that her medical education had a definite religious component. Maybe I'll find out more. The American Osteopathic Association's emphasis on health in body, mind, and spirit (not that that webpage would have been written yet back then) might well have appealed to her.
c) Medical training available to women at the time.
The first woman to earn a medical degree in the United States was Elizabeth Blackwell, in 1849 - over half a century before Laura attended osteopathy school. Also, Fred's first wife Mabel (before marriage) attended medical school with Fred. I don't know what Mabel's exact degree was, but she was there.
So Laura could have gone the mainstream route, but I imagine it would have been quite difficult. Money might have been a problem, too. Mabel had resources that Laura would not have had: there was some sort of scholarship fund for offspring of missionaries like Mabel, and I think her family had more money than the Stokeys did. I imagine, but don't know for sure, that a mainstream medical education would take longer to complete than an osteopathic education. Will was always generous with the checks for education, but there would have been a limit to what was available, and Laura might not have been happy about taking too much.
Additionally, the osteopathic school that Laura attended (the first in the United States) had a lot of women, as indicated by the list of people in Laura's graduating class. The school might well have been a more comfortable place for a woman.
As for what we have about Laura's journey to become a doctor...
After high school graduation, Laura spent some time as a nurse in Aultman Hospital in Canton. We've got an entry in the 1903 Canton city directory for that, and in August of that year Mama Margaret mentions Laura nursing typhoid patients at the hospital.
We have a letter in which Eva mentions Laura going to work for Deaconess in St. Louis, Missouri in October 1903. Laura's obituary says that she graduated from the Epworth Evangelistic Institute in St. Louis. Epworth and Deaconess are associated with each other. I don't know the details of the how the association worked in the early 1900s. Nothing tells us what Laura expected when she went to St. Louis - whether she went with the intention of attending the Epworth Evangelistic Institute, and at what point - either in Canton or in St. Louis - she started thinking about osteopathy as a career. We do have a 1907 item mentioning Laura as a visiting nurse at Deaconess/Epworth.
There's an article about the commencement ceremony at the American School of Osteopathy in Kirksville, Missouri in 1909, listing Laura as one of the graduates. Around that time she needed some sort of document signed by her siblings. It was surely related to her becoming an osteopath, but all Mama Margaret said about the document was that everybody needed to sign it.
Laura took the Ohio State Board exams for osteopathy in December of 1909, and got her certificate from the state in January of 1910.
That's the end of the journey, but I've added a couple of epilogues:
First, a letter in which Mama Margaret told Will that Laura had been very helpful with her (Mama Margaret's) health. (I'm betting it was a leg issue, but I don't know). It had to have felt good for this newly certified osteopath to be able to help her mother.
Second, the obituary for Laura that I mentioned above, since it gives a little (though of course not much as I'd like) clarity on what Laura was doing in St. Louis.
As is standard with the Tours, each stop in the Tour has links to the previous stop and the next stop in the Tour.
LAURA BECOMES AN OSTEOPATH: THE TOUR: ---introduction---~THE LIST OF TOUR STOPS~---other links---site navigation
- 1903 CANTON CITY DIRECTORY: THE STOKEY ENTRIES --- Laura is a nurse in a hospital in Canton.
- 1903-08-26 LETTER FROM MAMA MARGARET TO WILL --- Laura is nursing typhoid patients at her job.
- 1903-10-29 LETTER FROM EVA TO WILL --- Laura goes to work at the Deaconess facility in St. Louis, Missouri.
- 1907-05-01 PERIODICAL ITEM MENTIONING LAURA --- Laura is a visiting nurse at Deaconess's Epworth Evangelistic Institute in St. Louis.
- 1909-04-26 LETTER FROM MAMA MARGARET TO WILL --- Laura needs to have a mystery document signed by her siblings. It must be related to her becoming an osteopath, but what was it?
- 1909-06-01 ARTICLE ABOUT LAURA'S OSTEOPATH SCHOOL GRADUATION --- Laura graduates from the American School of Osteopathy.
- 1909-12-22 LETTER FROM MAMA MARGARET TO WILL --- Laura takes the Ohio State Board exams for osteopathy. Four days of exams.
- 1910-01-06 NEWSPAPER ITEM ABOUT LAURA --- Laura gets her certificate as an osteopath from the Ohio state medical board.
- 1910-11-13 LETTER FROM MAMA MARGARET TO WILL --- Laura is able to alleviate her mother's health issues.
- 1975-01-10 DEATH NOTICES FOR LAURA --- Laura dies, and her obituary is helpful in clarifying her educational journey,
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