I WAS in the Women and Children's Hospital at seven o'clock in the morning of November 23, 1933, when I read and reread, then slowly spelled out the big black letters in the headline, "Rheta Wynekoop Murdered."
    My early operation was, for the time, forgotten as I concentrated my thoughts on who could have committed such a crime. I was sure that it must have been some irresponsible crazy person. At that moment any idea that Dr. Lindsay Wynekoop might have murdered Rheta, would have been as untenable and fantastic as a suspicion against me.
    Rheta was the beautiful, delicate wife of Dr. Wynekoop's son, Earl. Ever since their marriage a few years before, the young couple had lived with Dr. Wynekoop who not only admired but loved her daughter-in-law. She was always arranging appointments for Rheta, a fine violinist, to appear on programs.
    Shortly after Rheta became one of the family, Dr. Frank Wynekoop and the adopted daughter died and Rheta seemed to make up in many ways for their losses.
    My friendship for Dr. Lindsay Wynekoop began when she was a medical student. Of decided beauty and charm, her head covered by masses of wonderful titian hair that curled about her face, Miss Lindsay lit up and made beautiful everything about

her, even her clothes. I was very happy when, five years after her graduation, she married Dr. Frank Wynekoop who had devoted much of his time to me and given me, without remuneration, the instruction necessary to teach embryology.
    Their first child was a beautiful boy named Lindsay. When but a baby, he died following an attack of appendicitis. Dr. Lindsay Wynekoop took the death badly; in fact, her three later children never quite took the place of the boy Lindsay. Walker, her second son, was a lusty, handsome little fellow of great promise.
    Unfortunately, Dr. Lindsay Wynekoop's health was never robust. I saw her one day in front of a big department store downtown in Chicago, where she had been having a severe pulmonary hemorrhage. Hence, although she recovered, it was no shock to her friends when, with her fourth child, Earl, husband of Rheta, she kept persistently to her bed nearly the whole prenatal period, to prevent losing him. As it was, he was born prematurely, and proved a difficult baby to rear. Feeling a certain responsibility for his prematurity, she always gave him a little more care, a little more consideration and more shielding from any ills, than the other children.
    Passionately fond of babies, she would sacrifice herself for children and young people, hers or someone else's, as she looked after the smallest needs of her little family. After the birth of her daughter, who was vigorous like the older brother, Dr. Wynekoop, undaunted by the care of three children, adopted a little girl, Mary Louise, in order that her own small daughter might have the companionship of a sister.
    It was a busy, happy family during those years while the children were growing up. In a small room off the dining room, the four children ate their meals. The cute little table, the tiny chairs, the cunning dishes, and the pretty, appropriate pictures on the wall must certainly have done much to make those childhood days of the Wynekoop children unforgettable. Great care was given to their schooling; each child was studied and placed where it could develop in the most normal way.

Dr. Wynekoop, although her father was an atheist, was herself a most devout Episcopalian. She confided one day that she went to her pastor for confession, an institution that she believed to be of great help.
    Dr. Frank, her husband, was a quiet man, like a boy who had been brought up in the country and had never gotten far away from country habits and country thinking. Deeply interested in medical science, had he been engaged in research instead of general practice, he would probably have made some important scientific discovery.
    Inasmuch as a nucleus of devoted patients had grown year by year into a large and lucrative general practice, they always had funds to keep the children looking lovely, and to give them every advantage of children of wealth.
    Almost daily we talked over the telephone. It mattered little whether it was Dr. Lindsay or Dr. Frank that I got first; I always had a delightful chat with each one. I enjoy a gay companion, and of all the friends I have ever had, there was never any gayer than she. Even in serious things she saw something amusing, and met every light vein of mine with peals of laughter, so sudden, loud, and irrepressible that it seemed beyond her control. I sometimes wonder if her close and constant association with her children kept her so young and mirthful.     It was, however, through her patients sent to me for operation that I found how generous and unmercenary she was. She would often say, "Now, my services are not worth anything, but I want you to know what hard times this patient has been having." Then she would finish a hard-hit story by begging, "Do make your charges small!" Occasionally she would say, "Could you do the operation for nothing?"
    In 1934, only a few months after her commitment to the Reformatory at Dwight, I gave voice in a toast to my feelings about Dr. Alice Wynekoop at a dinner given during the American Medical Association meeting in Cleveland. It was in honor of Dr. Rosalie Slaughter Morton, who was presented with a loving cup by some of her friends. Dr. Emily Barringer of New York

City, toastmistress, had asked me to respond to a toast but gave no hint as to what she would like me to say. My crony, Dr. Lena Sadler, was then president of the American Medical Women's Association, and when I began to tell her what I had intended to say at the dinner, she protested, "No! no! Just get up, say a few graceful words, and sit down. Promise me you will."
    For some reason my mind seemed to run amuck. I had never before thought of so many wonderful speeches I could make but I valued my dear friend Lena's advice. She was wise and sane, and I knew I ought to obey. I would have, if I could have spoken first.
    But I thought and thought all through the dinner as I sat in front of the large loving cup. The first one called upon for a toast was the only male present--a gentleman who eulogized and emphasized the "lady doctor," the "woman physician," the "fair sex," the "lovely lady".
    I offer this as a feeble excuse for my wretched toast, so quizzically received. I rose, and looking straight over Lena Sadler's head, ignoring her in fact, I began with, "I know exactly how proud and happy this occasion and this loving cup make my friend, Dr. Morton. I know, because once upon a time, after I had been practicing medicine for twenty-five years, a very dear friend of mine arranged for me just such a dinner; and she, too, bought a loving cup on which were engraved the names of all of my women doctor friends on the hospital staff. I was so proud and happy that I placed the loving cup upon the mantel where its beauty could inspire me every day with the love and loyalty of my friends.
    "Well, the days went by and the years rolled over, and I know not why, but it happened that my loving-cup friends put me off the hospital staff, and I took down the cup. I spat into it, and relegated it to the attic, to collect rust and dust, to be observed by mice, not men.
    "The days went by and the years rolled over, and I know not why, but it happened that my loving-cup friends begged me to go back on the hospital staff, and I went groping into the attic,

and found the loving cup. After much polishing it did look pretty, and I could read all the names that had been dimmed by the dust and dirt. I was glad to go back to the hospital, and I restored the loving cup to its place of honor on the mantel.
    "And the days went by, and the years rolled over, and I cannot see why, but it happened that the dear one who had bought the loving cup for me so long ago, was accused of murder and committed to prison, where she is now languishing. My first impulse was to take the cup from off the mantel, roll it in cotton and hide it away, never to take it out until she was vindicated and restored to honor.
    "Now, I am telling this to Dr. Morton that she may know in advance that loving cups may be full of love, or they may be full of gall and bitterness; but my wish is that hers will let everything, except love, leak through."
    When Dr. Morton spoke, I caught Dr. Sadler's eye. It was ominous with that look of "Mother will have to spank."
    The loving-cup dinner, arranged by Dr. Alice Wynekoop, was her first effort to bring my friends to a happy recognition of me. Her next attempt in that direction was a very successful and never-to-be-forgotten occasion, a Farewell Dinner as she called it, on the eve of my departure for China in 1922. The dinner was given at a Greek restaurant on Ogden Avenue, midway between Cook County Hospital and the medical school, because Dr. Wynekoop thought that I would feel more at home in surroundings that were part of my daily medical routine.     Dr. Quine, Dean of the University of Illinois College of Medicine, and his niece were there. Dr. Quine was acknowledged to be the most eloquent and moving of speakers; he never was more so than on that evening. He had a fatherly pride in my going to China to lend my assistance in every way possible to many women medical students whom I had helped to prepare for their mission work.
    At this Farewell Dinner Dr. Wynekoop had a speaker to represent each group and society or club of which I was, or had been, a member. The program was really ingenious.

    There were clever innovations that no one but Dr. Wynekoop could have conceived. She called upon Dr. Margaret Jones to respond to a toast for the "Society of Redheads." Dr. Jones, Dr. Wynekoop and I were all brilliant specimens of that society.
    At that time I had literally tons of copper-yellow hair. It was so thick and long, reaching to my knees, that I could dispose of it in no other way than by braiding it into two huge braids and winding them about my head, like a cap. I had always entertained an intense hatred of this hair, and no amount of praise could convert me.
    As a child I had been "Redhead," "Sorreltop," "Carrots," and all the red-hot names country children can conjure up. As a young lady, I had worn my hair in only one style and never in the prevailing fashion. As a surgeon, I had spent time and money having it shampooed and cleaned for the aseptic technique of the operating room. When finally it turned grey, and fashion demanded that it be bobbed, I was as happy as a boy with a rabbit. I would look into the mirror, and at times feel a little ashamed that at long last I could see something in my reflection to excite my admiration, for to me, my grey bobbed hair was a perfect success.
    The program was terminated by calling upon Dr. Julia Holmes Smith, pioneer woman physician and ex-president of the Chicago Woman's Club, to give a prayer. That prayer still rings in my ears, so simple, so full of fervor.
    This Farewell Dinner was a sweet, intimate affair in comparison with a banquet that Dr. Wynekoop conceived and executed ten years later on the event of my seventieth birthday. She called this banquet an Appreciation Dinner, and mustered to it such a distinguished group of people that it was I who felt cheap and small, almost shoddy, to be having so much attention from the elite of the profession, as well as from shining figures in social and political life.     Again as toastmistress, Dr. Wynekoop inspired the guests to outdo each other in a rivalry of praise and appreciation.
    Alice was unable to attend the dinner, but she wrote me a

letter. That letter I prize more than any of the things said about me that night:

My precious sister,
People will say all sorts of lovely things to you and about you tonight, but they will not know as I do how true they are. Accept this tribute from one who has leaned on your loyalty, been strengthened by your love, been happy always by the sunshine of your optimism, who is most thankful for your existence.

case already set up for her defense. Disappointing as were my efforts during the trial, after the verdict they were hopeless.
    During the fifty years of my friendship with Dr. Lindsay Wynekoop, a big opportunity to demonstrate my deep love for her never came until the middle of December, 1943, when she telegraphed me to come at once to the Reformatory at Dwight, Illinois.
    This is the only time Dr. Wynekoop telegraphed me, but I have received many letters from her. One especially gives the daily routine of her prison life. Her days are all alike:

My old pal! Could I but grip your hand and sit where I could see you awhile. I'd not need many words! Times I feel as though I'd literally succumbed to the desperate need of someone who cares. All my life, until imprisoned, there were those within touch or call who satisfied this deep need. Just can't seem to get along without it. My schedule is pretty well defined: called at 6:30, breakfast at 7:00, "do" my room and report for assignment, 7:45. Back in room 11:40, shower and change work suit for dress and dinner 12:00. In my room again (with door locked) until 12:30. Then until 1:15 am enjoying a bit of tutoring for someone who has a laudable ambition--I like doing that! At 1:15 I go to the solarium, where I rest an hour; then until 4:45 read and brief (for filing) selected medical articles. Supper is at 5:30; lights out at 8:30... For "pickup" am undertaking lace for an altar cloth. It is No. 50 thread so that I cannot do more than fifteen minutes at a time. It is hard, but am making it a devotional service. All that time I'm at prayer.

    On my arrival at the reformatory I was conducted to a pleasant room to meet the doctor who was with one of the parole officers, a delightful lady, not at all like a prison guard. On previous visits I had seen her in the visitors' basement waiting room, where we sat at a long table with a high glass partition separating us, and a grim female "matronizing." Often I had to wait an hour to see her, and our time was always limited to visiting hours.
    Dr. Wynekoop had sent for me to advise her regarding her petition that would come up before the Division of Pardons and

Paroles on January 11, 1944. She talked rapidly, referring to notes, and was in every way a different Dr. Wynekoop from the one I had grown used to--the despairing, helpless prisoner. Her whole being was surcharged with determination and directness. I remarked on her changed attitude, and she confessed to a new outlook.
    "When the doctor told me in September that there was a tiny spot on my lung, I suddenly made up my mind that, if I should have a return of the tubercular trouble that I had when a girl, I was not going to die here. It's strange, perhaps, but true that for ten years I have daily expected the real murderer to confess and exonerate me. Now I have given up that idea, and I am going to get out of here. I will! No matter what it costs--publicity, anything--I have stayed here long enough."
    She had made out a list of old friends, whom she hoped still might be interested enough to help her. Her last request was that I should appear before the Board of Pardons in Springfield, Illinois, and make a thirty-minute plea.
    The longed-for big opportunity to serve her had come, but it took my breath away! Although numberless times, to small groups of women or individuals interested in the case, I had detailed the circumstances that led (I believed) to the accidental shooting of Rheta Wynekoop by an irresponsible, or perhaps insane person, was I after all, the best one for such a responsible undertaking? My heart was full of resentment against her unjust imprisonment. My tongue tingled with hot, acid words. How unhappy I would be if, by some blazing word of wrath, I should cement, instead of sunder the shackles that, every year for ten long years, have sunk deeper into her sensitive soul. On the other hand, if I could rouse and touch human sympathy for her by my pleas, how happy I should be!
    Whether for better or for worse, if she wished me to make a plea, I could not refuse her. She, more than any other friend, had a right to ask me to lay my heart upon the block, if need be, and do it as a happy sacrifice. In such a spirit I took upon myself my greatest responsibility in eighty years.

    What I most needed was the advice that Alice and Sarah would give me. I also needed the quiet isolation of the farm, and so planned to spend the holidays in Stony Creek. To ease my conscience regarding travel in war time, I rode all night in a coach filled with soldier and sailor boys, women with babies, and sweethearts of every description, and arrived at the only place I call home, the day before Christmas.
    To read a paper or speech always fills me with "stage fright"; I make a more pleasant impression upon my audience by extemporizing, assisted by a few notes. For this occasion I was determined to write and then commit to memory, my plea. However, I did not find writing easy. Day after day I wrote--and destroyed what I had written.
    I wanted the gentlemen on the Pardon Board to understand that my friend was no common person, but a medical woman of parts and certainly not a murderer. For that reason I wrote in detail her medical and social attainments:
    In 1893 she was a student in the Northwestern University Women's Medical School, where I was teaching embryology. During her senior year she began teaching in her Alma Mater and continued after graduating, first as Instructor of Anatomy, and later as chief demonstrator in the dissecting room and Clinical Assistant to Dr. D. R. Brower, specialist in nervous and mental diseases. In 1896 she interned in the Women and Children's Hospital. During the summer months of the years of 1897 to 1902 she was Resident Physician at the Daily News Fresh Air Fund Sanitarium. After her marriage to Dr. Frank Wynekoop in 1900, she became instructor in Histology at the University of Illinois College of Medicine and held this position from 1900 to 1914.
    Besides these heavy rounds of medical work she took part in cultural, educational and philanthropic projects.
    For two years she was President of the Chicago Medical Women's Club, and for another two years served as Chairman of the Propaganda Committee of the Chicago Medical Society, and presided at weekly lectures in the Chicago Public Library.

She was member and one of the three Trustees of the National Chapter of Nu Sigma Phi. She was a member and for a number of years acted as Corresponding Secretary of the Chicago Eugenic Education Society. In 1912 she was Chairman of "Baby Week," and conducted daily morning and afternoon clinics at the Boston Store in Chicago.
    During World War I she was tireless in her efforts to disseminate knowledge regarding Social Hygiene and First Aid. She was a member of the Social Hygiene Committee of the Women's Division National Council of Defense, and a lecturer on Social Hygiene in Illinois, Indiana, Michigan and Wisconsin, under the auspices of the National Y.W.C.A. She served also at this time as Director of First Aid under the Red Cross.
    She was a member of the Child Welfare Committee of the Woman's City Club, member of the Board of the Chicago Culture Club, Children's Benefit League, Chicago Political Equality League and the Illinois Congress of Mothers, later known as the P.T.A., in which organization she has a life membership.
    She was a charter member of the Cordon Club.
    For several years she served as President of The West End Mother's Council and often as Chairman of the Program Committee. She was Director of Mothers' Classes at the Off the Street Club for many years, and for a short time taught an adolescent class in Epiphany Sunday School.     In this draft of my speech I only cautiously referred to the accidental shooting--my theory of the murder of Rheta--but stressed Dr. Lindsay Wynekoop's treatment during the "examination" made by the police. I told of the grilling, when she was allowed no rest, no change of clothing, no meals except a cup of coffee, when collapse seemed iminent. Even a visit to the lavatory, where there was no soap, towel or toilet paper, was made under male police escort.
    During this "third degree" Dr. Wynekoop was taken from one police station to another. Entrance was difficult because of a mob, both men and women, who swarmed about them, cursing, calling vile names and spitting on her. These men and women

did not know Dr. Wynekoop--had never seen her before. In three days, printers' ink had blotched out her life-long good name and branded her a murderer.
    The press really tried Dr. Wynekoop. Every day she was hypothetically connected with some known crime. She was represented in pictures as an old hag plotting the death of anyone who came within her influence. Nor was it a matter of purely local interest. Every newspaper in the United States vied with those of Chicago in tearing her reputation into shreds. As her reputation shrank the coffers of the public press bulged.
    This terrible impression made on the public by the press was not transient. Just recently a patient told me that she had never seen or known Dr. Lindsay Wynekoop, but she was quite sure that she was a vicious woman. She remembered how she had run a "baby farm," had murdered her husband, and she thought that she had put the body of her adopted daughter into the furnace.     The stimulus for this interest and wide-spread publicity was, without doubt, to be found in the fact that Dr. Wynekoop was a woman doctor, one of a group that has suffered long years from prejudice. When Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell was studying medicine almost a century ago, women who met her on the street would draw aside their skirts, lest they brush against such a bold, unwomanly creature. Dr. Wynekoop had unwittingly stirred up old smoldering fires of discrimination, and they burned with unquenchable ferocity.
    Dr. Lindsay Wynekoop had hosts of friends, for the most part women, but they seemed powerless to help her.
    When I read this plea that I thought was fairly strong to Alice she said, "I thought you wanted to free Dr. Wynekoop! Don't you? Or would you rather vent your spleen against the press and air your feministic views?"
    I was now sure that I was not the person to make an effective plea, and I had only ten days in which to try to "change my spots." I wrote a new plea, cutting out the Who's Who, for I recalled that it was written out in full in the petition. I toned down, and smoothed out the activity of the press.

    My next step on my return to Chicago, was to submit a type-written copy of the much revised plea to Pearl Hart, one of Chicago's leading lawyers. After a careful reading, she advised me to delete some ungracious remarks about Dr. Wynekoop's lawyers, but urged that I enlarge upon my murder theory--give all names, places and dates in detail. She assured me that I need not fear doing so, for I had a right to my theory, and a right to make it public. She also suggested that as the Pardon Board was made up of men, it might be desirable to omit anything that might irritate them.
    For ten years I had longed to cry from the housetops that Rheta Wynekoop was not murdered, but was accidently shot by an insane person. In no court had I ever been able to tell this, but before the Board of Pardons--yes! At last I was sure of my ground, and made the final draft of my plea with no difficulty.
    On the morning of January 11, 1944, I made a forty-minute speech for the pardon of Dr. Lindsay Wynekoop after the Chairman of the Board had directed me, "Make your speech."

    The plea that I made on January 11, 1944, in re the pardon of Dr. Alice Lois Lindsay Wynekoop follows:
    Members of the Division of Pardons and Paroles
    Springfield, Illinois
    Gentlemen:
    In petitioning for the pardon of Dr. Alice Lindsay Wynekoop, two typewritten pages were required to record her medical and social prowess, and it is, therefore, not necessary for me to review them. Few medical women, in double the number of years, have acquired recognition in as many fields--medicine, education and philanthropy.
    My acquaintance with Alice Lindsay began in 1893, a half century ago, when she was a student in the Northwestern University Woman's Medical School where I was teaching embryology.
    In 1900 she married Dr. Frank Wynekoop, a good friend to me, and in the past fifty years the Wynekoop family has been

among my closest and most cherished associates. Our friendship has been a proud and happy one.
    With such a background can you imagine my emotions when, on the morning of November twenty-third, 1933, I read the headlines, "Rheta Wynekoop murdered." I flew to the telephone and Dr. Lindsay Wynekoop, recognizing my voice, said wearily, "We are just leaving for the inquest."
    I answered, "I love you and am ready to help you if you need me."

    [At this point I gave the details of my own murder theory.]

    The first time that I saw Dr. Wynekoop after the murder she was in the hospital of the Woman's Reformatory at Dwight, Illinois. I said to her, "Since we have failed in all our efforts to save you from prison and vindicate your reputation, I believe that this act is an act of God. You could not have done much more in your profession. Your children might be better now without your help or even your advice. I believe you have been selected--"called" as the preachers say--to do a great work. This reformatory is filled with lost and suffering souls. You, innocent, yet one of them, may be able to bring into this prison the Light of Hope, the Joy of Faith, the Peace of Resignation. As you lift up your companions, hope, joy, and peace will come to you."
    "How long will it take," she whispered.
    "I cannot tell," I said, "but when your task is finished, these gates will fly open and you will go forth, your crowned head looking upward to your Emancipator."
    During the trial I watched the papers, day after day, for some direct evidence against my unhappy friend, but lavish as the newspapers were in giving every detail of the case, I never found any evidence, except circumstantial. Nevertheless, on circumstantial evidence, in the State of Illinois, Dr. Wynekoop was convicted of murder--a murder of which she was no more guilty than the judge who sentenced her.
    Even if circumstantial evidence could have been piled mountain high, it seems to me that it should have melted away as

snow under the radiant rays of the sun--that sun, her life of good works and good will for all less fortunate than herself.
    Nor can I conceive that any physician with the mental acumen and scientific training of Dr. Lindsay Wynekoop, would commit murder in such a bungling, gangster fashion when she is conversant with a score of undetectable ways by which it might be accomplished.
    The fantastic motive attributed to Dr. Wynekoop was that her desire for money was so great that she would insure and then murder her daughter-in-law, merely to realize on life insurance. I can not harmonize this morbid estimate of her character with the Dr. Lindsay Wynekoop that I have known and loved for fifty years. Too often have I known of her treating patients gratis, and more than that, taking them into her home and supplying free medication. If she had cared so much for money and had had so little regard for life, she might have become a wealthy abortionist. Temptation to murder for money (abortions) comes to every physician, but, to the credit of the medical profession, the Hippocratic Oath forbids it. Never, in all the years of our friendship, have I ever discovered her side-stepping in order to possess money. Then too, Dr. Wynekoop's greatest need for money had passed. All of her children were educated and were self-supporting.
    Ten years ago when the sentence of twenty-five years in prison for Dr. Lindsay Wynekoop, based on circumstantial evidence, for there was no other, was read, there was imposed upon her an unwritten and unescapable punishment of great severity. Her reputation was destroyed with one word, "Guilty".--a reputation that had been unsullied for more than fifty years. She was deprived of her license for medical practice, which, for more than thirty years, she had carried on without ever committing an unethical act. Her name was wiped from membership in all medical and social organizations, many of which she had helped to found. Her citizenship was taken from her, and she was left worse than a refugee, a prisoner in a no man's land. The guillotine fell on all family ties. Her motherhood was besmirched.

Her entire family, from the nearest to the most remote member, was branded with the ever-active stigma of disgrace.
    Dr. Lindsay Wynekoop was not only sentenced to twenty-five years' imprisonment, but like a guilty soldier from whom all insignia have been ruthlessly torn, she was stripped, in public, of all her hard-earned decorations: reputation, license to practice, membership privileges, and citizenship.
    Dr. Lindsay Wynekoop, an innocent woman, has spent ten years imprisoned in the State Reformatory for Women at Dwight, Illinois, where she has performed every kind of labor for which she was physically able. She has worn the clothing, kept the hours, eaten the food, and lived up to the rules of the institution. She has accepted the limitations regarding visitors and correspondence. She has given freely of help and sympathy to her fellow prisoners. She has kept her mind young by reading current literature, the daily newspapers, medical journals and all the books and papers that thoughtful friends have sent to her.
    In these ten long, monotonous years her Bible has been her solace, and prayer, that gives her strength, is ever on her lips and in her heart.
    In 1937 I visited an old friend and patient who, at the age of thirty-five, forsook her life of teaching and residence in busy, bustling Chicago, to enter a cloistered convent, an hour's ride from London, England. On my return home I went to the State Reformatory at Dwight to see Dr. Lindsay Wynekoop, and was struck by the similarity of the lives of those two friends.
    Convent walls keep the world from the cloistered nun, while prison walls keep Dr. Wynekoop from the world. The nun is restrained by vows and her duress is voluntary. Dr. Wynekoop's duress is compulsory and her restraint, the law. Nevertheless, the life of the cloistered nun is no more consecrated to the service of our Lord than the life of Dr. Lindsay Wynekoop.
    Although Dr. Lindsay Wynekoop has petitioned for a pardon, she does not expect the State of Illinois to restore her reputation, for under the shadow of her lost reputation, her character, which

no law or court can take away, has grown strong and enduring. She does not ask for a renewal of her right to practice medicine, for time, year by year, is making it null and void.
    She does not seek reinstatement of her membership in the many medical and social organizations to which she belonged, for physical disability bars participation, except in memory.
    She does not miss the loss of franchise, for, by reason of her sex, she had no vote until she was forty years of age. She is accustomed to such handicaps.
    Dr. Lindsay Wynekoop petitions his Excellency, the Governor of Illinois, for her liberty, in order that the medical profession, all women, her sorority sisters, members of all the organizations to which she has belonged, her church, her friends, and most of all her family, may be spared the humiliation of having one of their number, though innocent, die within prison walls.
    In every corner of the world young men are fighting and dying, that we may live in freedom. In a little corner of no man's land an old woman is fighting to live, and living in the hope that she may die in freedom.
    Members of the Division of Pardons and Paroles:
    I thank you for listening to my plea for the liberty of Dr. Lindsay Wynekoop. Because I know that she is innocent of her daughter-in-law's death, and had no part in it, her incarceration for a longer time demands great consideration and study. My words are but a poor sample of what is in my heart. In making recommendation for her pardon, I sincerely pray that you may have Divine Guidance and the inspiration of the Golden Rule, "All things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them." More than that no man can ask.

    Though my plea brought some of the members of the Pardon Board to the verge of tears, nevertheless, Dr. Wynekoop was not granted a pardon. I did not know at this time that the board of pardons had received 31 petitions for pardons, and I had forgotten an impending election.
    I did not mention in my plea the confession that she signed

three days after her arrest because she immediately repudiated it. Her signature was obtained after she had been falsely told that her son, Earl, was in the next room writing a confession.
    The day following the plea, on January 11, 1944, Dr. Lindsay Wynekoop wrote me. The last paragraph of her letter gives her unalterable attitude towards her incarceration, as well as to her pardon:

How will all this terminate? It is now in God's hands. May the work done in His name have response conformatory to His will. Since petitions (yours, Father Hopkins', all friends' and mine) have been only for justice, then we have in reality asked only 'Thy will be done,' God grant it.

    I was glad that Dr. Wynekoop could rest her case with the Lord.
    For myself, I swore, "I'll make them hunt their holes! I'll let them know there's a God in Israel!"

Source:

Van Hoosen, Bertha, Petticoat Surgeon, Pellegrini & Cudahy, Chicago, 1947, pp. 287-304.

    I'd like to thank Sherry Lord, [email protected], of Underwood, Minnesota for bringing this selection to my attention, and even more for making a copy of it and sending it on for me to share with you. As Sherry rightly pointed out, the newspapers of the time tarred and feathered Dr. Alice Lindsay Wynekoop without benefit of trial, probably ensuring her guilt before she ever stood before the bar. This chapter from the autobiography of a fellow physician and lifelong friend of Dr. Wynekoop presents an entirely different and warmer look at her. I think, here, you will finally meet a real person rather than the demon the papers presented to the reading public. I'm ashamed to admit that until I had read this piece, I too, had fallen into the trap the media had set for me. I thought I knew who Alice was. Having read Bertha Van Hoosen's account of her friend, I now know better. This case was a lot more complex than the newspapers reported it to be. I now have serious doubts about the verdict that was handed down.

    Once again, Sherry, thanks so very much for opening my eyes.

    All my best,

    Chris