Notes and notebook with biological drawings most likely from Lula Disosway's education at the Women's Medical College of Pennsylvania.
Lula Marjorie Disosway was born 1897 January 9 in New Bern, North Carolina, to Reginald and Lula (Stanley) Disosway. Originally, she dreamed of becoming a missionary evangelist but decided to become a doctor after reading Dr. David Livingstone's memoir of Africa. Disosway took pre-medical classes at Johns Hopkins University and then entered the Women's Medical College of Pennsylvania in 1921. In 1925, she became the first woman intern at James Walker Hospital in Wilmington, North Carolina. In 1926, at the encouragement of the National Episcopal Church, Dr. Disosway sailed to Shanghai, China, where she was assigned to head a 150-bed hospital with only one other doctor to assist. This forced her to become proficient in several medical specialties, including surgery. After a brief return to North Carolina, Disosway went to Fort Yukon, Alaska, 13 miles above the Arctic Circle, and worked for eight years as the only doctor within 600 miles. Eventually she returned to North Carolina in 1948 to care for her ailing mother. Beginning in 1954, she became the Director of the Good Shepherd Hospital for Blacks in New Bern and dedicated herself to work in the hospital's adjunct clinic. Disosway died 1973 February 12.
Notes and notebook with biological drawings most likely from Lula Disosway's education at the Women's Medical College of Pennsylvania.
1982 July 5, 0.430 cu. ft.; this colection includes 165 items, including correspondence, clippings, newsletters, photographs, photgraph albums, speeches, and miscellaneous. Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Donald J. Disosway, New Bern, N.C.
Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Donald J. Disosway, New Bern, N.C.
Processing revised by Ashley Williams, 2015
Literary rights to specific documents are retained by the authors or their descendants in accordance with U.S. copyright law.
English
Lula M. Disosway Papers (#447), East Carolina Manuscript Collection, J. Y. Joyner Library, East Carolina University, Greenville, North Carolina, USA.