“No Small Part”: Utah Women in Medicine, Nursing, & Midwifery, 1873 – 1930
Pioneering Physicians
Romania B. Pratt Penrose (1839 – 1932)
Born in Indiana, Romania grew up in the Midwest (including Nauvoo), until moving to Salt Lake City at the age of 16 with her mother and three siblings. Her education started at the Female Seminary of Crawfordsville, Indiana.
In 1873, when women in the Territory of Utah were first encouraged to attend medical school, Romania Pratt was in her mid 30s. She had been married to Parley P. Pratt, Jr., since 1859 and had given birth to seven children. Two of her children, a son and a daughter, died in infancy. After securing care for her five children with her mother in Utah, Romania joined her husband in New York City late in 1873. Early the following year she enrolled in the Woman’s Medical College, which was founded in 1868 by Elizabeth Blackwell, the first woman to receive a medical degree in the United States. Romania eventually transferred to the Woman’s Medical College of Pennsylvania, graduating in 1877.
Upon returning to Utah after graduation, she set up private practice and regularly taught courses in anatomy and obstetrics, advertising to women in the Woman’s Exponent. In 1882 she was appointed to the Deseret Hospital board of directors and became a resident physician in 1887.
As her professional life changed, so did Romania’s personal life. In 1881 Romania and Parley Pratt, Jr., divorced. Five years later, Romania married Charles William Penrose (1832-1925). Born in London, Penrose was known for his long mission service in England before emigrating to Utah in 1861. At the time he married Romania, Charles was editor of the Deseret News.
This Family Record notes baptisms, marriages, and life events in the family of Romania B. Pratt Penrose. Though Romania’s graduation from medical school was a significant event – the first time a woman from the Territory of Utah had done so – the entry is simple and straightforward:
“Romania graduated in medicine at the Women’s Medical College in Philadelphia Pa. in the class of 1877. She practiced successfully for thirty years in Salt Lake City on the eye and ear, obstetrics and diseases of Women and children.”
By September 1891, Romania Pratt Penrose had been practicing medicine for nearly 15 years. This profile, written by Susa Young Gates and published in The Young Woman’s Journal, encouraged readers to be inspired by Penrose’s accomplishments: “I have met women who possessed every capability of great and widely useful women, but who lacking encouragement and a grain of determination have remained in the old beaten tracks, longing to get out but unable seemingly to do so. To all such the life and labors of Sister Pratt will prove a veritable inspiration.”
Ellis Reynolds Shipp (1847 – 1939)
Born in Iowa in 1847, Ellis Reynolds moved with her family to Pleasant Grove, Utah, in 1852. In 1865, Ellis lived at the Beehive House in Salt Lake City, studying in the company of Brigham Young’s family. In 1866, she married Milford Bard Shipp. Milford and Ellis Shipp had 10 ten children, four of whom lived to adulthood. The Shipp family also included sister wives Margaret Curtis, Elizabeth Hilstead, and Mary Smith.
In the fall of 1875, Margaret Curtis Shipp travelled to Philadelphia to enroll in the Woman’s Medical College of Pennsylvania. After a month of deep homesickness, Margaret returned to Utah, leaving a spot open at the College for another student. This vacancy was an opportunity for Ellis Reynolds Shipp to take Margaret’s place at the Woman’s Medical College. A mother of three at the time, Ellis’s children were cared for by her extended family of sister wives. Near the end of her second year of medical school, Ellis gave birth to another daughter. Shipp graduated with honors in 1878.
After returning to Utah, Shipp established a medical practice and founded the School of Obstetrics and Nursing in 1879, enrolling new students every year. Shipp trained more than five hundred women to become licensed midwives, teaching midwifery and obstetrics classes into her 80s.
Ellis Shipp was also known for her poetry. The volume Life Lines contains more than 100 poems about familial love, the natural world, and human nature. In the Introduction, Emmeline B. Wells wrote, “In the heart of the author of the book . . . there lives and vibrates a depth of feeling that is in touch with all things beautiful in nature and humanity; full of hope and faith in God, the Giver of life and of all good gifts—the fountain of all knowledge and intelligence.” Note the sailing ship on the cover; Shipp liked to play on her last name.
This is Ellis R. Shipp’s diploma from the Women’s Medical College of Pennsylvania, awarded March 14, 1878.
Ellis Shipp: The Determined Doctor
This painting by Kathleen Peterson was created for the picture book “Girls Who Choose God: Stories of Extraordinary Women from Church History,” by McArthur Krishna and Bethany Brady Spalding. An oil painting on mahogany, it portrays Ellis assisting at a birth, with light radiating from the newborn like a halo. The book highlights 15 women from church history who chose God, discussing a specific decision point in their lives, and invites readers to consider how they might be inspired by the choices these women made. Ellis’s section reads: “Ellis had a choice to make. She could mourn that too many babies were dying, or she could do something to solve the problem.” For more information on this book and the series, see girlswhochoosegod.com.