Hannibal native among 1st female physicians to practice in St. Louis

This image of Dr. Caroline (Holman) Skinner, who grew up in Hannibal, was published in the St. Louis Post Dispatch on Aug. 20, 1899. She was reported to be among the first three women to practice medicine in St. Louis. She graduated from the old Homeopathic College of Missouri, at Jefferson Avenue and Howard street, circa 1897. newspapers.com

MARY LOU MONTGOMERY

Dr. Caroline Holman Skinner, (1858-1948) a circa 1897 graduate of the old Homeopathic College of Missouri, is recorded to be among the first three women doctors to practice medicine in St. Louis. She served on the staff of the Deaconess Hospital in St. Louis from 1898 until her retirement from practice.

She served as chief physician for the old White Cross Home, predecessor of the Catherine Springer Home for Women in St. Louis, and was on the board of the home.

With early ties to Hannibal, she was the daughter of Edward and Caroline E. Reid Holman, and graduated with a class consisting of four young women from Hannibal High School in 1875. (Miss Mary J. Kidd, Carrie Holman, Mary B. Stone and Gertrude Ashmore.)

The following fall, she started teaching at Hannibal’s South School, located on what is now known as Missouri 79, south of Walnut street. (The steps to the school remain in place, though the building was demolished a number of years ago.)

She was half sister to Walter Q. Brashear, featured recently in this column, who served as fireman for the famed Hannibal and St. Joseph Railroad steam engine run across the state in 1860, which earned the railroad the contract to deliver mail to St. Joseph, the terminal of the Pony Express.

Caroline (Carrie) Holman was married to Hoyt H. Skinner, in early 1880. He was the son of Archibald and Ann Smith Skinner.

The Skinners

The Archibald Skinner family moved to Hannibal from Fond du Lac, Wis., in the early 1870s, opening a wholesale and retail sash, doors and blinds business on the south side of Collier, between Sixth and Seventh. The six Skinner sons were:

James Washburn Skinner, 1837-1912;

Henry A. Skinner, 1845-1864;

Charles Skinner, born circa 1849;

Edward Skinner, 1853-1920;

Hoyt Skinner, 1857-1891; and

Lloyd Skinner, born in 1861. (Names and dates from ancestry.com)

In 1873, the Hannibal City Directory lists the Skinner family as living at 306 Sixth St. Archibald and Charles E. Skinner, father and son, were the business proprietors. (Note: The house where the Skinners lived is believed to have been replaced circa 1885 by the Joseph Rowe House located on the same lot. Source: National Register of Historic Places Inventory, Central Park Historic District.)

The family’s stay in Hannibal was short-lived; by Christmas, 1875, Charles Skinner had relocated to Colorado, and presumably the rest of the Skinner family would soon return to Wisconsin.

While youngest son, Lloyd, was reported by the local newspaper as enrolled in the Hannibal Public Schools in January 1875, the last known advertisement for the sash and door company was published in the Hannibal Clipper on  July 4, 1874.

Lloyd Skinner later became a Unitarian minister, settling in Lincoln, Neb.

Hoyt Skinner,  who won the aforementioned Caroline Holman’s hand in marriage in 1880, was a student at Ripon College in Wisconsin in 1874, while his family was living in Hannibal. He later worked as a general solicitor for the Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Company, Milwaukee. That’s where he and his bride began their married life in 1880. After contracting consumption circa 1889, Hoyt and his young family moved to Newton, Kan., where he hoped the improved climate would be beneficial to his health. All went well for awhile, until la Grippe took hold. He died in December 1891, leaving behind his wife, Caroline, and two children, Edward H. Skinner (1881-1953) and Carol A. Skinner (Cole) 1885-1932.

On her own

Caroline Holman Skinner set out with determination after her husband’s death, closing out his business in Kansas and moving with her children to St. Louis, where she enrolled in medical school. She took full responsibility for their wellbeing, and stood by her children as they completed their education, each becoming doctors in their own right.

Gains perspective

In 1899, two years after Dr. Caroline B. Skinner graduated from medical college, The Sunday Morning St. Louis Post Dispatch asked Dr. Skinner and two other women a challenging question: Should a married woman work for a living?

Her own work was of necessity in order to support herself and her two children following her husband’s death in 1891. She didn’t answer the question on behalf of herself, rather in relation to all women.

“If a woman equips herself by education and training for one of the many professions and business avocations open to her, as minister, physician, lawyer, artist, editor, author, actress, teacher, architect, chemist, pharmacist, trained nurse, etc., she seldom resorts to marriage as a refuge from work and her own support.”

But not all women, she understood, could take on the task of self support.

“Nine tenths of the working women receive a meager compensation, scarcely sufficient for their living. If these women are confronted by a suitor whose income barely covers his expenses for board, clothing and the inevitable smoking, the question of marriage is an extremely practical one. By uniting their labor and lives they may have the semblance of a home and companionship. If the woman’s avocation takes her daily to a counter or desk, she must deny herself maternity.”

And in conclusion, “Individually I believe if the avocation of the woman worker will not interfere with her being a home keeper she may hazard the self supporting clause in the text. Marriage is a law of nature. If it means anything it means wifehood, motherhood and a home.”

World traveler

In 1910, five years after the marriage of her daughter, Dr. Skinner undertook a two-year world tour, studying abroad as she ventured to interesting travel destinations.

She sailed from San Francisco on Jan. 7, 1910, on the Pacific steamer Korea. After touring Japan and China, she was scheduled to take the Japanese Nippon Gusen Karsha line to India. Her itinerary included studying in Vienna and Berlin while abroad.

She sent a letter to her brother, the aforementioned Walter Q. Brashear, postmarked Ceylon.

Brashear told the Hannibal Evening Courier Post: “She left Los Angeles last December, going from there to the Hawaiian Islands, and thence to Japan. From there she went to China and took a trip of several hundred miles up the Yang-tse-Kiang river. Ceylon was the next country she visited. She is making many extensive side trips and has written her brother that she will make a long stop in Rome. She is expected home next fall.”

She didn’t stop traveling when she returned home from abroad.

In 1915, she attended both the Panama-Pacific International Exposition in San Francisco and the Panama-California Exposition in San Diego.

Triplets

Among the highlights of her medical career was the delivery of a set of triplets, sons of Mr. and Mrs. F.L. Taylor, St. Louis. The boys were named William, Jennings and Bryan.

Mrs. Taylor was the former Ella Cheeley, who was born and raised in Louisiana, Mo.

The St. Louis Post Dispatch, on Aug. 7, 1900, reported on Dr. Skinner’s reaction to the births she attended:

“They are fat boys, and they are lusty and every one of them is going to grow up and they ought to come to renown. Healthier triplets of their years - I  mean their hours - were never seen. No babies ever born at St. Louis will ever been given better care or closer attention than will this notable trio.”

Dr. Skinner died June 7, 1948, at the age of 94, and is buried at Newton, Kansas, beside her husband and daughter.

Mrs F.L. Taylor, St. Louis, gave birth to triplets in August 1900. The triplets were delivered by Dr. Caroline Skinner, a native of Hannibal, and at the time a physician in St. Louis.  Mrs. F.L. Taylor was formerly Ella Cheeley, a native of Louisiana, Mo. St. Louis Republic, Aug. 8, 1900.

newspapers.com

These granite steps once led South Hannibal students to school. The steps are located in the 700 block of Missouri 79, previously known as Birch Street and Fifth Street, South Hannibal. Behind the steps, to the west, was the site of the South School, built circa 1875. In 1875, Caroline Holman, who later became Dr. Caroline Skinner, taught at South School, along with Belle Ayres, who was later Mrs. Robert B. Robinson. (Belle Ayres is the great grandmother of Mary Lou Montgomery.) File photo/Mary Lou Montgomery

Skinner & Co., advertised in the Hannibal Clipper on Saturday, July 4, 1874. newspapers.com

Mary Lou Montgomery, Suburban Newspapers of America Editor of the Year, Dailies, 2010, retired as editor of the Hannibal (Mo.) Courier-Post in 2014. She researches and writes narrative-style stories about the people who served as building blocks for this region’s foundation. Books available on Amazon.com by this author include but are not limited to: "The Notorious Madam Shaw," "Pioneers in Medicine from Northeast Missouri,” “Hannibal’s ‘West End,’” “Oakwood: West of Hannibal,”  and “St. Mary’s Avenue District.” Montgomery can be reached at Montgomery.editor@yahoo.com Her collective works can be found at www.maryloumontgomery.com