Women doctors in Indiana

Have you ever wished you could be a fly on the wall at some point in the past? Then don't miss the current issue of the Indiana Magazine of History, which focuses on women's 20th-century struggle to become doctors. Alexandra Minna Stern introduces and frames Dr. Elsie F. Meyers' "Success! Memoirs of a Female Hoosier Physician," starting in the early 1940s in LaGrange County:

I had no science background and very little money. And I had never heard of a female doctor, much less seen one. ... I think that my father's believing in me was what gave me the strength to try.

Meyers, now a retired anesthesiologist, is a straight talker. Those who aren't themselves medical people, or who didn't grow up in a family with them, may choose not to read the memoir over breakfast. Those who feel the need to believe that every respected ancestor deserved respect may not enjoy it. Genealogists and historians will hang on every word.