Mary
Jane Stafford
was born in Hyde Park, Vermont, on 31st December, 1834. When she was
three years old Mary's family moved to Crete, Illinois. After leaving
school she taught in Joliet, Shawneetown and Cairo.
On the outbreak of the American Civil War
the Union Army arrived to protect Cairo
from the Confederate Army. As the town
was situated at the confluence of the Ohio and Mississippi rivers.
A series of epidemic diseases broke out amongst the troops and Stafford
volunteered her services as a nurse.
In the summer of 1861 Stafford began work with Mary
Ann Bickerdyke at Fort Donelson. Stafford
also served under General Ulysses S. Grant.
at Shiloh in Tennessee. She also worked
on the hospital ships, City
of Memphis and Hazel
Dell.
After the war Stafford was determined to become
a doctor. She graduated from the Medical
College for Women in New York in 1869.
She also studied at the University of Breslaw in Germany, wher she
performed the first ovariotomy ever done by a woman.
In 1872 Stafford opened a private practice in Chicago.
Later she became professor of women's diseases at the Boston University
School of Medicine and
a staff doctor at the Massachusetts Homeopathic Hospital. Mary Jane
Stafford died in Tarpon Springs, Florida, on 8th December, 1891.
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