CHAPTER XXXIX
Dr. Zakrzewska’s private life—Her home—Her friends—Her keeping in touch with the Hospital doctors, students and internes—Her “boys”—Her ethics—Her reading—Men physicians who served as consultants at the New England Hospital.
Concurrently with the public manifestations of Dr. Zakrzewska’s life, as recorded in the preceding pages, proceeded her more intimate life of home, family and friends. Allusions to these happy possessions have been made from time to time, but a particular word should be given to one feature which she brought with her from the old world to the new—a feature which enriches life over there, and which would add so much to our American life could we adopt it as generally and as simply.
Reference is here made to the custom of European people of all grades of circumstance in incorporating the outdoors into the daily life of the household, especially for the hour or moment of social relaxation.
Poor indeed the family that has not at least a tiny arbor, or shelter, or shaded spot, where the glass of sirup or other beverage of the country, or the cup of coffee or tea, or the incense of the friendly pipe or the more exclusive cigar, draws the curtain upon the workaday world and releases the spirit for a few moments’ dream of content.
“Rock Garden” was the name of her most blessed retreat—a large garden with terraces and with the rocks for which Roxbury is famous. There were trees and shrubs, fruits and flowers, tables and seats, and the air was filled with memories of happy hours, hospitable days and friendly meetings. And many groups of Hospital directors, doctors and internes, as well as other friends, gathered there at various times, carefree and festive.
“Rock Garden has always been the Garden of Paradise,” comes a voice borne upon the breeze, “but wherever you are or wherever you make your home, that place will soon be ideal to your friends.”
Dr. Buckel writes from the gardens of California, her thoughts turned back to Rock Garden:
Oh, what has it not been! You know what it has been to you, but you do not know how dear it is to other hearts. I almost feel as if it ought to be set apart as a place sacred to friendship and to all the sweet memories associated with it.
... Christmas at Rock Garden always comes to me as a beautiful memory of generous hearts and joyous greetings. How plainly I can see you holding up the packages and reading off the names in your own inimitable manner, while the big stocking stands yearning to give up its treasures.
And again:
... I always think of Rock Garden and the Christmas tree there and how much I enjoyed it, and how dear are the memories. All the Heinzens, Miss Sprague, Dr. Morton, the Prangs, Dr. Berlin, the Drs. Pope, and others, are all fresh in my mind, and I send them kind greetings, with love to Santa and your own dear self.
William Lloyd Garrison at one time described this home which Dr. Zakrzewska had there created for herself and for the friends and patients who were her paying guests. He said:
Dr. Zakrzewska was already settled in her attractive home in Cedar Street, Roxbury, when, in 1864, my father moved to Highland Street near by, and the two families became intimate. Although unmarried, the Doctor rarely failed to have a house full of friends and relatives, making of her home a social center for her German and American acquaintances.
She was a woman of decided opinions and the frankest speech, a circumstance which gave zest and animation to any group in which she mingled. She held firmly to the conviction that personal consciousness ends with death; that so-called spiritual communications are a delusion, that prohibition laws infringe upon individual rights; that homeopathy has no claim to science; and that armed resistance to tyrants is justifiable.
My father held diametrically opposite views, but as both were believers in the utmost freedom of speech, the social clash of arms never engendered a moment’s ill feeling. They were closely united upon the questions of anti-slavery and woman’s rights, and they were drawn by a common impulse to progressive and philanthropic movements.
Karl Heinzen, who with his wife and son made a part of the Doctor’s household, was a striking and remarkable figure. He was a man of massive intellect, possessing a high reputation in Germany as a writer of both prose and verse. His intense love of liberty and hatred of shams had made him an exile in America in the tumultuous years preceding the Civil War. He was of noble stature and frame, a spacious temple for a great soul, his rugged face betraying his indomitable and fearless character. Boston never realized the value or distinction of this moral hero, for the reason that the English language was more formidable to him than despots and monarchies. But in Dr. Zakrzewska he had a friend who appreciated his noble talents and virtues.
... I have dwelt upon this conjunction of the Doctor with Karl Heinzen because his influence upon her life was deep and abiding. To see him working about the ample grounds, trimming the grapevines and attending to the fruit trees—his recreation and pleasure—and, when the weather permitted, to behold the afternoon table-gathering under the leafy shade at the back of the grounds which rose above the house, was to receive the impression of a bit of the Fatherland—a German grafting on a Yankee hillside. The glimpse was often through or over the board fence which separated my own house on the hilltop when, in 1868, I became the Doctor’s closely adjacent neighbor. What animated talk enlivened the coffee, and how many friends enjoyed first and last the retirement and refreshment!
In the early days, sweet Mrs. Severance and her interesting family lived also on Cedar Street; the Prangs were near at hand on Center Street; the Koehlers and the Elsons were in the vicinity. The beautiful suburb of Roxbury was then full of natural charm, an object of interest to strangers visiting Boston and at that date untouched and unspoiled.
I remember a traveled friend pointing down Cedar Street towards the Doctor’s house and asking, “Have you ever been to Versailles?” adding, “The arches of these glorious elms are a reminder of it.”
For many years Dr. Zakrzewska had a summer cottage at York Harbor but it is of her busy city homes that her friends wrote most often.
One of the former internes writes to her in later days:
The year spent by me in the Hospital will always be remembered with great pleasure, particularly that part of it when I was quarantined at the Maternity and you used to ask me down to dinner at your house nearly every evening.
She kept in touch with all the doctors and students who had been at any time connected with the Hospital, if writing only at notable times such as the big anniversaries or when some special report or Fair souvenir was published. She always inquired how they were getting on, and whether they received the annual reports of the Hospital which were always sent to their latest address. And so she was kept informed of their changing circumstances, their successes or discouragements, their marriages, their husbands, their children, and their problems of many kinds.
In beginning practice they had the varied fortunes which might be expected from differing individualities, equipment, resources and environment. Some found doors already opened to welcome them; some had to make places for themselves. One of the latter group writes to her:
I am now doing very satisfactorily but I often think how prophetic you were when you used to warn us, saying, “Five years of waiting and starvation are before every one of you.”
Their addresses were scattered all over the world—over the United States from Maine south to Florida and west to California; on the north to Canada; and east and west to England, Scotland, France, Germany, Switzerland, Italy, India,[23] Persia, Japan, China.
In keeping with the breadth of view which characterized her and her director associates, no discrimination has ever been made at the New England Hospital regarding sects, races or nationalities in students, doctors, nurses or patients.
As we have already seen, Dr. Zakrzewska had always a large circle of friends among the famous and high-minded men of her time, and her influence with the men in the families of her patients has also been noted.
It remains to add a word as to the number who were proud to call themselves her “boys.” A specimen letter from one of these latter, signed by a name well known in Boston, says:
Dear Doctor:
As no person in the world outside of my own immediate family is dearer to me than yourself, I want you to be one of the first to know of my engagement to —— ——, and I am sure you will approve of my choice.
Trusting that we may meet before long, I am as ever one of your boys.
She had no theologic affiliations. Her clear vision and her keen reasoning powers were unsatisfied with any form of dogma, creed or ritual yet elaborated. And she found these latter unnecessary to the development of a rule of life which reconciled the untrammeled intellect and the highest ethics yet evolved by an upward-struggling humanity.
She was able to organize instinct, training, reason, observation, experience and personal association, and to add to these the communion with the great minds of the race which is to be derived from reading—each continually checking up and correcting all the others. So she developed a mind which she kept in a wholesome state of flux, ready to modify any conclusion as new light rose above the horizon.
She held her course and steered her life as a skilled navigator holds his course, who while he steers by compass and chart yet makes myriad adjustments as required by continually varying conditions of wind and wave and sky.
And pursuers of high ideals in ethics and philosophy were always on her list of friends. This list always included clergymen, and in this connection we may note the observations at a later date of Rev. Charles G. Ames. He says:
Dr. Zakrzewska in speaking of the class of unfortunate women with whom she was often brought in contact in her medical work, once said to me, “I cannot give them money but I always give them my friendship in order to keep them morally alive.” It made me think of Fichte’s words, “No honest mind is without communication with God, whether so called or not.” After hearing that remark of the Doctor’s, I never had any difficulty in giving her my fellowship on the deepest spiritual ground.
Reverend James Freeman Clarke[24] was one of her earliest friends in Boston, their acquaintance beginning back in the days when she came soliciting help for opening the New York Infirmary.
In her address at the opening of the Sewall Maternity new building, in 1892, Dr. Zakrzewska alludes to this episode, saying:
Let me express the gratitude we owe for our existence to a man whose influence secured to us the noble friends who in the spirit of justice to women gave invaluable assistance with their labors and their financial help—I mean, Reverend James Freeman Clarke.
I feel justified in saying that it was among the members of his church that the idea was materialized and that funds for the beginning of the experiment were provided.
We have referred above to Dr. Zakrzewska’s wide reading. One of the friends of her Cleveland days, Rev. A. D. Mayo, says:
By an intuitive grasp of what was best for herself in books, she realized the saying of the historian, George Bancroft, “I should as soon think of eating all the apples on the big tree in my garden as to read the whole of any good book. I pluck and eat the best apple and leave the rest.” She always knew the best apple on every tree of knowledge, and her mind was stored with the condensed wisdom of many libraries.
And he tells of the renewal in Boston of his friendship with her, some twenty years after its beginning in Cleveland:
Having made Boston my family headquarters, we were brought together in her generously appointed home in Union Park, almost under the eaves of the great church of Dr. Edward Everett Hale. I then verified anew the old truth that a genuine friendship grows even during absence.
Writing at this same date about Dr. Zakrzewska’s personality, Dr. Buckel says:
I cannot measure how much I owe to her skillful, energetic, practical instruction as a physician when I was a student in the New York Infirmary; neither can I measure the strength, courage and hope which her bright example has given me throughout my life.
I think, however, that her genuine respect for even the very poorest of the poor immigrants who crowded the most wretched quarters of New York made the deepest and most lasting impression. Others showed sympathy and pity, but she entered into their lives with an appreciation of their difficulties and a coöperation in their honest efforts that stimulated their courage and gave them strength to work on until success finally rewarded them.
She considered the husband, father, son, and brother equally worthy of regard with the women of the family in all her plans for improvement. Although devoted to women’s best interests, she never worked for women alone. Her influence over the men in these poor families was most remarkable, considering their supposed opinions as to the proper sphere of woman.
Not a few educated, intelligent men owe their first start in the world to her suggestive counsel. The spirit of comradeship she felt with high-minded, intellectual men greatly strengthened my own convictions as to the true relations of men and women to each other and helped me to enjoy more freely the friendship of men whom I honored and admired.
In her social life, gentlemen were always most cordially welcomed, and they seemed sincerely to appreciate her kindness and highly value her esteem. The picnics and excursions she planned to the suburbs and parks of New York, which were then easily accessible, are among the most delightful memories of my life. Grave professors, exiled philosophers and learned doctors ran with us in our merry games and forgot for the moment all but the gladsome spirit of the play.
During my long association with Dr. Zakrzewska in hospital life, both in Boston and in New York, I do not remember a single misunderstanding. I always had her cordial support in the hospital and a bright, warm welcome in her home. And I knew that any of our students whom I might take to her house would also receive a cordial welcome and realize that she was their friend.
For so many years after its beginning the New England Hospital was so largely regarded as a personal expression of Dr. Zakrzewska, and its place in the estimation of the profession was so largely based upon appreciation of the standards of which she stood as a representative, that the acceptance by a man physician of a position on the consulting staff was really a personal tribute to her.
For this reason it seems desirable to publish here the names of all the men who during her life served the Hospital in a consulting capacity—whether as physician, surgeon or other specialist—the names being placed in chronological order.[25]