OCR Text |
Show 189 hospital for women and children, and by counsel on account of great demand of obstetrical aid needed in the numerous settlements, soon instituted a school of midwifery, and taught two classes a year for twenty-eight years, except when absent for special study in the New york Eye and Ear Infirmary, where she spent eight months in 1881-2."19 Romania divorced her husband in March of 1881, three years after returning home from medical school. Whether the breakup of the marriage can be linked to Pratt's frequent absences on church missions is problematical. By the time of the divorce, Romania herself had been away (with the exception of the summer of 1874, spent in Salt Lake City) for four and a half years. Perhaps Romania's marriage lacked the romantic ardor and religious commitment which bonded Ellis to Milford. Some hint of that is given in Romania's comment to Ellis when they were together in Philadelphia that she had never known anyone to have as high opinion of a husband as Ellis had of hers. In 1881, the year of her divorce from Pratt, Romania married Charles W. Penrose, editor of the Deseret News. Past forty at the time, Romania had no children by him. He did rather well, however, through his first wife, Lucetta Stratford, who produced eighteen offspring (eleven of whom died as children), and his second wife, Louise Lusty, who bore hime ten children, eight of whom survived the hazards of childhood. Charles William Penrose, like Milford Bard Shipp, had four wives; but, unlike Shipp, introduced them into the family circle at widely-separated intervals. He married Lucetta in 1855, Louise in 20 1863, Romania in 1886, and Rhoda Mendenhall in 1896. |