WINNING LIKE ELIZABETH BLACKWELL & EVE MERRIAM...

"Skitch Winning"

THEN:

    When I was in the sixth grade I had a teacher, we'll call her Mrs. M.,  that was renowned with the paddle. I lucked out and only wound up with a handful of paddlings from her, but she was fierce. She had once smashed a boy's head against the blackboard, leaving his hair peppered with chalk and a knot on his head. Once she paddled me on a set of stairs and sent me reeling down the steps. I almost fell, but did not. When she saw that I had not fallen she insisted that I come back up for the remainder of the licks she had promised me. I went back up with a smile on my face. She spanked me and I laughed. My strength came in the form of humor. I pretended it was funny that they wanted to hurt me with their little sticks...

    It was not.

    Despite my ability to get in trouble and the hard knocks I'd had from several teachers, I loved to learn and to participate in anything I could. My mother would not allow any after school activities, so I took advantage of all the ones that were held during school hours. I often finished several 4-H projects each year, I participated in the talent shows and the forensics competitions. I tried out for every play, and I won a few nice roles.

    When I was in Mrs. M.'s class I became involved in a forensic competition. I wanted to read a poem written about Elizabeth Blackwell, the first female to go to college and become a doctor. The poem was written by Eve Merriam and was very dear to my heart. It was about a girl that got tired of the world playing that "boy card" and telling her she could not do something because she was a girl. The first time I read it Elizabeth Blackwell and Eve Merriam were instantly added to my mental list of heroes. Inside the poem there was a line that said, "Geneva, Geneva, how sweet the sound; Geneva, Geneva, sweet sanctuary found...." Geneva was where Elizabeth Blackwell, at long last, received a yes to her quest for medical training. It was indeed a sweet sanctuary.

    While instructing me for the reading, Mrs. M. kept going over those words, insisting that I was not giving them the right amount of "feeling." In short, I was saying them and she wanted me to sing them. At one point, I had my feelings hurt because I was doing the very best job I could with those words but Mrs. M. was so unhappy with my efforts. I forgot myself and pointed out that I was supposed to read the words not sing them. I immediately apologized, but to this day I am surprised that I didn't get one of those handful of paddlings right then and there. She was irate from the top of her head to the tip of her heels. I was as frustrated as she was irate. I felt she was making fun of something that, to me, was a serious matter. In the end I compromised. In class I said the words as closely as I could to the way she wanted me to, but when competition time came, I said them, very deliberately and very exactly the way my heart wanted to say them. I wish I could tell you that I won the contest. I did not. But I can tell you that I said the words with the reverence they were due. I said those words just as I felt them. I can tell you that the forensic competition was for me, not Mrs. M. And I can tell you that Elizabeth Blackwell & Eve Merriam changed my life.

    I sat down and my heart won.

    Mrs. M. did not paddle me for my insubordination. She only told me it was no wonder that I didn't win. I did not point out that I had won. Like Elizabeth Blackwell and Eve Merriam, I did exactly what I had set out to do.

   

Here is the poem for your consideration:

Elizabeth Blackwell

Now Elizabeth Blackwell, how about you?

Seamstress, or teacher, which of the two?

You know there's not much else a girl can do.

Don't mumble, Elizabeth. Learn to raise your head.

"I'm not very nimble with a needle or thread.

I could teach music - if I have to," she said.

"But I think I'd rather be a doctor instead."

"Is this some kind of joke?"

asked the proper menfolk.

"A woman be a doctor?

Not in our respectable day!

A doctor? an MD! Did you hear what she said?

She's clearly and indubitably out of her head."

To medical schools she applied.

In vain. And applied again, and again, and again and one rejection offered this plan: why not disguise herself as a man?

If she pulled back her hair, put on boots and pants, she might attend medical lectures in France.

Although she wouldn't earn a degree, they'd let her study anatomy.

Elizabeth refused to hide her feminine pride.

She drew herself up tall

(all five feet one of her!)

And tried again.

And denied again.

The letters answering no

mounted like winter snow.

Until the day when her ramrod will finally had its way.

After the twenty-ninth try,

there came from Geneva, New York

the reply of a blessed Yes!

Geneva, Geneva, how sweet the sound;

Geneva, Geneva, sweet sanctuary found....

...and the ladies of Geneva

passing by her in the street

drew back their hoopskirts

so they wouldn't have to meet.

The perfect happy ending

came to pass:

Elizabeth graduated...

...at the head of her class.

And the ladies of Geneva

all rushed forward now to greet

that clever, dear Elizabeth,

so talented, so sweet!

Wasn't it glorious she'd won first prize?

Elizabeth smiled with cool gray eyes

and she wrapped her shawl against the praise:

how soon there might come more chilling days.

Turned to leave without hesitating.

She was ready now, and the world was waiting.

~ Eve Merriam ~