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Show •n, o ,, A 711 2nd Avenue JAN 1419BO In 1871 Bard took a plural wife, Ellis commented on this development in her diary" "On the 23rd of October, Milford married another wife, Elizabeth Hilstead. I do not allow myself to become low spirited. I have trusted in my Heavenly Father and He has blessed me. I know there is but one way to be happy in polygamy and that is to keep burning in our hearts the Spirit of God." Eventually, Bard would have a total of four wives simultaneously. In the fall of 1875 one of Bard's wives, Margaret Curtis Shipp, left SLC for Philadelphia where she planned to study at the Women's Medical College. She became so homesick that she returned home after four weeks. As a result, Ellis was given permis sion to go back to Philadelphia in her sister-wife's place. She left SLC in Nov. 1875, expecting to be gone from her family and home for two-and-a-half years. While in school she supported herself by making dressmaking patterns and teaching women to sew. However, her standard of living was at a bare subsistence level most of the time and about half way through the mecidal course, she was forced to return home for a time to regain her health. On her return to Philadelphia, she successfully graduated although she had given birth to her daughter Olea not long before. The Women's Exponent for May 15,1878 contained an advertisement announcing Dr. Ellis Shipp's intention to begin practice with "special attention to Obstetrics, diseases of women and monor surgery. - Free Scholarships." The last phrase in the announcement indicated the beginning of a school to train nurses and midwives. This school, which would run continuously until 1938, consisted, in the beginning of two terms of six months each with five lessons per week. A certificate of graduation was presented to each stu dent who successfully passed examinations supervised by the SLC Board of Health. Later the school became a travelling affair, wih Dr. Shipp staying about three months in one location. In 1902, for example, she visited the Mormon colonies in Mexico where she lectured in "every hamlet ward from Ciudad Diaz to the tops of the mountains wih all its treacher ous ......" In 1888, her husband started the "Salt Lake Sanitarian," a "Monthly Journal of Medicine and Surgery." Drs. Ellis and Maggie Shipp were editors and frequent contri butors. Near the beginning of the magazine's run appears the following rationale for its creation: "It is with no little apprehension that we launch the "Sanitarian" upon an untried sea. The domain of medical journalism with us has not, hitherto, been invaded. To publish a Journal of Health, such as we contemplate, has received our careful delibera tion, and we have often asked ourselves the question, can we put anything to the public that will be of interest and profit." Evidently they could. The journal lasted three years. In addition to her medical practice, Ellis Shipp was on the staff of the Deseret Hospital; a member of the general board of the LDS Relief Society; a delegate to the National Council of Women; president of the Utah Women's Press Club; and a published poet. Much material relating to her life has been collected at the Utah State Historical Society as the Ellis Reynolds Shipp Papers. Following Dr. Shipp's death in 1939, after more than sixty years of medical practice, the house was sold to a man named Carl S. Emlay, who was a salesman for the Standard Oil Co. He owned the house for only a few years, selling it in the early 1940's to Daniel W. Moffat, a construction worker. He in turn sold it to William Mac A. Story in 1958. Story was a minimg engineer and a principal in the firm of AM and S Milling Co. |
