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Show 223 sum of $25. This, of course, included prenatal care, plus the ten postpartum visits to bathe and care for the patient and her baby which midwives had traditionally considered a part of their service. She may have felt a bit of a twinge in asking so much more than the midwives had been getting, so she qualified it in her advertising by stating it this way: "$25 when convenient." Her chroniclers say that she was always very modest in her prices and never refused hardship cases. One of her daughters, when Ellis had grown old, mentioned food-in-lieu-of-payment which her mother often received for her services, thereby inferring that they were never affluent. If Ellis complained of this in person, she certainly did not rail against it in print. What she did say was: We were financially comfortable. I practiced and cheerfully received remuneration as my patients refunded according to their financial circumstances. My needs were never so urgent that I felt the necessity of placing bills in the hands of collectors.7 With only the normal drains on her income for customary family expenses, Ellis might, indeed, have become quite comfortable, in time. But her schooling costs had obligated her to her sister wives, Maggie, Lizzie, and Mary, and to Milford. Ellis, not being one to overlook any kind of obligation, was probably responsible for the fact that, only five years after she undertook her practice, Milford and Maggie had also attained the M.D. degree. How could this phenomenal achievement have been possible, given the family's perennial penury? What had happened to Milford's law practice-if |
