CHAPTER XL
Opening of the new Dispensary building (the Pope Dispensary)—Dr. Zakrzewska speaks of the relation of the Dispensary to confidence in women surgeons—The new surgical building (the Ednah D. Cheney Surgical Building)—Dr. Zakrzewska’s remarks on the progress of the woman physician as demonstrated by these added new buildings (made more complete later by the Kimball Cottage for the Children’s Department)—Celebration of her seventieth birthday by a reception and by the naming of the original main building “The Zakrzewska Building”—Fatigue of this reception emphasized the failing health which had already caused her retirement from private practice—Her characteristic acceptance of the inevitable—Her death—Her funeral services—Her farewell message. (1896-1902.)
Marie E. Zakrzewska, M.D.
(1896)
In 1896, Dr. Zakrzewska again refers to the confidence of the community in women surgeons, illustrating it by an experience which she relates in her address at the opening of the new Dispensary building (Pope Dispensary—donated by Colonel Albert A. Pope and named for the donor and his twin sisters, Drs. Augusta and Emily Pope) which was located on the site of the old one at No. 29 Fayette Street. She says:
Our Dispensary in especial serves another purpose, namely, to convince rich and poor, educated and uneducated, professionals and nonprofessionals that women physicians can serve the community at large as well as can men physicians.
Said an Irishman to me a few weeks ago, when I pronounced it necessary for a member of his family to undergo a serious operation and advised further consultation with other physicians, “Can’t we have one of the women surgeons from your Hospital?”
Seeing my surprise at this proposition, as the man was by no means an educated person, he said, “Well, Doctor, when I came to this country with my wife, we were very poor and knew nothing. The good women of the Pleasant Street Dispensary attended to us and taught us to take care of ourselves. All our children were born under their care, and they watched that we did right by them, all without any charge. Now that we can afford good pay, I am sure we want the same, for I swear by the women doctors.” This speech, delivered in good broad Irish brogue, made me laugh most heartily. I soon had the case in the hands of the proper attendant, and all went well.
So, friends, let us be proud of all we have done, with the promise to do more and better work as science advances.
In June, 1899, on Mrs. Cheney’s seventy-fifth birthday, the cornerstone of the new surgical building (the Ednah D. Cheney Surgical Building) was laid. In an address made at that time, Dr. Zakrzewska says:
After fifty years of experimental agitation and practical work, we now are completing the third department of the medical art in laying the cornerstone for this building. The medical pavilion,[26] the maternity, and now the surgical pavilion are the proofs in brick and mortar of woman’s independent and faithful performances in the medical profession.[27]
The confidence of the public which generously provided the means for this cause, the confidence of the sick who sought relief at the hands of the women physicians, and the attitude of the profession in general towards the woman practitioner—all these have been acquired through skillful and patient labor.
It would be affectation if we women physicians did not feel proud of the result which we now see materialized, grateful as we are to all those who in earlier years bore with us not only the doubt and opposition but also the ridicule of our attempts. While we remember those who have done their part so valiantly, we do not forget those who have passed away without having had the satisfaction which we now enjoy in the success of our early effort.
On September 6, 1899, she celebrated her seventieth birthday, and on October 24, as stated in the annual report:
The Hospital tried to do honor to the one who, more than all others, deserves to be honored—its senior physician, Dr. Zakrzewska. In her thought, the New England Hospital was born. Because of her zeal and untiring energy and the aid of a few earnest friends, it became a fact. And from that day to the present one, as wise woman, skillful physician, and faithful friend, she has been an inspiration to all.
A reception was tendered her by the Hospital at the home of Mrs. Thomas Mack and there, with Mrs. Cheney to assist, she greeted her many friends, old and new.
That the Hospital shall always bear an evident sign of its originator, it has been decided to name the main building which was the first one built, “The Zakrzewska Building,” and to have it suitably marked by a tablet.
The exhausting excitement of this celebration aggravated the nerve fatigue which had been hanging out warning signals for many years, and to which attention has been called in these pages. At last these admonitions had become peremptory, and at last the high-spirited physician was obliged to confess herself subject to the laws regarding which she had so often cautioned her patients.
A study of her symptoms would in these days lead to a diagnosis of arteriosclerosis, that sad, sure reaction that waits inevitably upon the over-strenuous life, whether this follows the spur of the inward urge or the whip of circumstance. In the earlier days of medical practice, when symptoms of this condition were most in evidence through cerebral manifestations, the diagnosis of an obscure and fatal nervous disease was made, and so it was in this case.
The keen-sighted patient realized that her ailment was progressive, that it might be palliated though not cured, and that the imperative treatment lay in a simplified mode of life with avoidance of care, anxiety and excitement.
So she retired from the last detail of private practice, put her affairs in order, even arranging her funeral service, and then she cheerfully turned her mind to bearing her discomforts philosophically and to making the best of the time which remained.
When the realization of the finality of her situation came to her, she was undoubtedly shaken (when the final summons comes, every normal-minded human being quivers, even if it be only for the moment), but she was not dismayed. Subconsciously her physical condition must have aroused compensatory instincts, as it does with all of us, for at one time she wrote:
Death is to me a good friend. Whenever it comes, it is welcome. So many of my contemporaries have gone and are going into Nirvana, the world becomes young daily and new to me, into which newness I can hardly find myself. So that, when I say, “I have enough,” I say the truth.
But additional acceptance of her position was favored by the serenity which comes to a mind which had long recognized the inevitable limitations which time would some time bring, for she writes:
For some years I have been saving money for old age, and in fact, I have done what I have so often encouraged other women to do—become independent of friends and charity. I have arranged to be independent until eighty years—to which age I sincerely hope not to live.
She seldom spoke of herself or of her feelings, but at one time she wrote:
If it were not for my poor head, I would say I was in better health than for years. But, alas! the nervous centers refuse to recuperate and the least excitement renders me sleepless, and a host of regrets, reproaches and condemnations rise up like demons to torment me.
Then, in one of the characteristic remissions of the condition, she writes, with one of her customary glints of humor:
I intend to live another seventy years because life seems so well worth living.
Once she wrote more in detail to Mrs. Cheney, because, as she said:
... It seems to me right that my dearest and oldest friend should understand me and not misjudge my actions.... Years ago some confusion of mind warned me of trouble to come, and it finally set in in the form of noises in my head. I scolded myself for being so nervous in my behavior while being irritated by these sounds, and I went gladly to California, hoping to get benefit by diversion.
However, the two distinct noises on the top of my head kept increasing so that even the noise of the cars did not drown them. Still I forced myself to act cheerfully and was determined not to be hopeless. Little by little, however, indifference toward events, then toward people, and now toward the beauty of nature, has crept upon me.
I have spoken to Dr. Berlin about this noise and described it as a steady sound of falling rain which prevented my falling asleep, to which she replied, “Well, we do fall asleep even if it rains hard, and so will you.” I do not care to talk with other physicians, as I have made a study of brain trouble more than anything else and can therefore advise myself. Besides, talking about it increases the nervous irritation. So please take this as it is written, in cool reason—it is an inevitable condition which must be braved.
Less than three years were left to test her fortitude. She grew steadily weaker and on May 12, 1902, her release came. After a night of restlessness and intense discomfort she fell asleep, never waking again but passing at sunset into the Silence.
On a beautiful afternoon, the closing scene was laid in the chapel of the Forest Hills Crematory, and the details were as she had arranged. She had requested that no flowers should be used—she who so loved Nature and all the lovely growing things—and in this her friends respected her wishes. But they could not be denied the tribute of green palms and wreaths of laurel.
There was no music, no service in the ordinary terms. Her older friend—William Lloyd Garrison—having gone before, his son of the same name and her younger friend, made a short introductory address. And then Mrs. Emma E. Butler, secretary of the board of directors of the Hospital, read the farewell letter which Dr. Zakrzewska had written for the occasion:
During my whole lifetime, I have had my own way as much as any human being can have it without entirely neglecting social rules or trespassing upon the comfort of others more than is necessary for self-preservation.
And now, upon this occasion, I wish to have my own way in taking leave of those who shall come for the last time to pay such respect as custom, inclination and friendship shall prompt, asking them to accept the assurance that I am sorry to pass from them, this time never to return.
While these words are being read to you, I shall be sleeping a peaceful, well-deserved sleep—a sleep from which I shall never arise. My body will go back to that earthly rest whence it came. My soul will live among you, even among those who will come after you.
I am not speaking of fame, nor do I think that my name, difficult though it be, will be remembered. Yet the idea for which I have worked, the seeds which I have tried to sow here and there, must live and spread and bear fruit. And after all, what matters it who prepared the way wherein we walk? We only know that great and good men and women have always lived and worked for an idea which favored progress. And so I have honestly tried to live out my nature—not actuated by an ambition to be somebody or to be remembered especially, but because I could not help it.
The pressure which in head and heart compelled me to see and to think ahead, compelled me to love to work for the benefit of womankind in general, irrespective of country or of race. By this, I do not wish to assert that I thought of all women before I thought of myself. Oh, no! It was just as much in me to provide liberally for my tastes, for my wishes, for my needs. I had about as many egotistical wants to be supplied as has the average of womankind.
To look out for self and for those necessary to my happiness, I always considered not only a pleasure but a duty. I despised the weakness of characters who could not say “No” at any time, and thus gave away and sacrificed all their strength of body and mind, as well as their money, with that soft sentimentality which finds assurance in the belief that others will take care of them as they have taken care of others.
But, in taking leave, I cannot pass by those who, in every possible way in which human beings can assist one another, have assisted me by giving me their true friendship. Of my earliest career in America, Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell has been the most powerful agent in strengthening what was weak in me; while shortly afterward, my acquaintance with Miss Mary L. Booth fed the enthusiasm kindled by Dr. Blackwell and strengthened me in my uphill path. The friendship of these two women formed the corner stone upon which I have built all my life long.
To many valuable friends in New York I owe a deep gratitude, and especially to Mrs. Robert G. Shaw of Staten Island. In Boston, I leave a great number of friends, without whom I never could have accomplished anything and who have developed my character as well as faculties dormant within me of which I was unaware. It is the contact with people of worth which develops and polishes us and illuminates our every thought and action.
To me the most valuable of these early friends were Miss Lucy Goddard, Mrs. Ednah D. Cheney, Mrs. George W. Bond, Mrs. James Freeman Clarke, Mrs. George R. Russell, Dr. Lucy E. Sewall and Dr. Helen Morton—not that I give to them a place higher than to others, but because I am fully conscious how deeply they affected my innermost life and how each one made its deep imprint upon my character.
I feel that whatever work may be ascribed to my hand could not have been done without them. Although I could not number them in the list of other friends who, in a special sense, formed a greater part of my life’s affections, still I owe to each and every one a great debt. And I wish now, whether they be still alive or in simple tribute to their memory, to tell them of my appreciation of their kindness.
To those who formed the closer family circle in my affections—Mr. Karl Heinzen, Miss Julia A. Sprague, and my sisters—I have tried to show my gratitude during the whole of my life, on the principle of Freiligrath’s beautiful poem:
O Lieb, so lang du lieben kannst;
O Lieb, so lang du lieben magst;
Die Stunde kommt, die Stunde kommt,
Wo du an Grabern stehst und klagst.And now, in closing, I wish to say farewell to all those who thought of me as a friend, to all those who were kind to me, assuring them all that the deep conviction that there can be no further life is an immense rest and peace to me. I desire no hereafter. I was born; I lived; I used my life to the best of my ability for the uplifting of my fellow creatures; and I enjoyed it daily in a thousand ways. I had many a pang, many a joy, every day of my life; and I am satisfied now to fall a victim to the laws of nature, never to rise again, never to see and know again what I have seen and known in my life.
As deeply sorry as I always have been when a friend left me, just so deeply sorry shall I be to leave those whom I loved. Yet I know that I must submit to the inevitable, and submit I do—as cheerfully as a fatal illness will allow. I have already gone in spirit, and now I am going in body. All that I leave behind is my memory in the hearts of the few who always remember those whom they have loved. Farewell.
Perhaps she is right. Perhaps in the ordinary egoistic sense in which the word is used, there is no such thing as Immortality. Nevertheless—the spirit of Marie E. Zakrzewska still lives.