Doctor Woman is an autobiography of a woman who led a very interesting life. Born about 1873 on a farm in Minnesota and then spending part of her early life in South Dakota, when her father tried homesteading there. May eventually followed a childhood dream of being a doctor and enrolled at the Medical School of the University of Michigan when she was 28. A few years later, as a doctor practicing in Atlanta, she met Edwin Wharton. After their marriage they went to Cleveland where he acted as a minister and she was resident doctor at a mission (?) house or settlement. Then they found themselves in New Hampshire for eight years. But finally they had a 'call' to go to Pleasant Hill Academy in a rural and isolated area of the Tennessee Cumberland Plateau.

Doctor May, as she came to be called, was a teacher and doctor for the residential Academy. This Academy was supported by the Congregationalist Church as a mission to provide education for the children of a rather isolated area just west of the Smoky Mountains. She arrived in 1917 and had settled in and gotten her school clinic off the ground with some basic heath care for the students when the flu of 1918 arrived. With 90% of the students and staff sick and needing expert care her burdens were increased as families in the surrounding area began calling on her help. At the time the only way of reaching many of the cabins where her patients lived was to walk the many miles between them through all kinds of weather, over rickety swinging bridges or through dangerous fords. Later Dr. May was able to acquire a horse, then a buggy, and eventually an old Ford. However, people further and further from the Academy were calling on her so that the travel time continued to consume large parts of her day. (And night!)

There are many anecdotes about her adventures and her various patients as she became a valued member of the "mountain" community and this is the section that I most enjoyed. I can actually remember the stories my parents and grandparents told about this area and the author's observations of the life there brought it all back. In many ways, her story was a reminder of my roots and of how much things have changed.

At any rate I thoroughly enjoyed this book although the constant fund-raising towards the end was less interesting. Still, it was a necessary component of her life as was the continuous search for people to come help with the work for very little compensation beyond the satisfaction of helping others to a healthier and better life.

Recommended for those interested in the history of rural health care and in the history of Tennessee, particularly that of the Cumberland Plateau and its people.