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Graduate in 1901 made state history
BY JIM BROOKS, ARKANSAS DEMOCRAT-GAZETTE (September 10, 2007)
During a medical career that spanned more than 40 years in Little
Rock starting at the turn of the last century, Dr. Annie Schoppach,
the first woman believed to have graduated from the University of
Arkansas Medical Department, welcomed thousands of new babies into
the world. On a muggy, overcast after noon Sunday, dozens of people
gathered in Little Rock's Oakland Cemetery to pay tribute to the
pioneer. Included in the group was Schoppach's great granddaughter,
who arrived from Chicago
- to talk about her historic ancestor.
"I only have stories about her," said Angela "Bonnie" Axel~ son, a
registered nurse whose grandmother was Schoppach's daughter. "But
I'm very proud of what she was
- able to accomplish in her life."
Arnancia Saar, librarian for the medical history library at the
University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences in Little Rock, said the
school has no records of any female
- medical school graduates until Schoppach graduated in 1901. "She's the first woman listed in any
capacity at all at UAMS," Saar said.
Dr. Richard B. Clark, past president of the UAMS Library's History
of Medicine Associates and past president of the Pulaski County
Historical Society, says Schoppach spent most of her career
practicing gynecology and obstetrics from her home at 1401 S. State
St., which also housed a maternity home. She practiced until a few
years
- before her death in 1949.
UAMS Chancellor Dr. I. Dodd Wilson said that in the decade after
Schoppach graduated from medical school, four other women joined her
in the profession. "She wasn't alone, but she was a pathfmder,"
Wilson said.
Dr. Brenda Powell, the first woman president of the Arkansas Medical
Society, said Schoppach saw incredible changes during her 91 years
of life. "Most women through history were born, lived their lives
and died in a world that was pretty much the same," she said. But
Dr. Schoppach, born three years before the Civil War began, lived
through great plagues, the ad vent of penicillin and two world wars.
"If there's anyone word that describes her, it is determination.,"
Powell said. 
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- Annie Adelia
Anette Ryerse was born May 3, 1858, in Port Ryerse, Ontario, into a prominent family. Her mother died when she was a small child and her
twin sister also died. Those deaths may have influenced her choice
to enter the medical profession,
Clark said. In 1878, she
married James Cutting and had two children who survived,
Ada and
Herwald.. In 1896, she met and married James Schoppach in Michigan,
where he was visiting at the time. James Schoppach was a prominent
public servant
in Little Rock, so Annie Schoppach
moved to Little
Rock with her new husband
and son in 1895 .
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- She entered medical school in 1897 and graduated with her class of
20 in 1901.
Initially, she opened her office
at 4041/2 Main St. in
Little Rock before buying the
house on State Street that served as
her office and maternity hospital for the rest
of her life.
- "Schoppach served the women of Little Rock well, rich and poor
alike," Clark
wrote in an article about Schoppach that was published
in the winter 2005 edition
of the Pulaski County Historical Review.
"She is said
to have used income from
her white patients to finance
the care of black patients who had little money."
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- Schoppach continued her medical practice until the age of 85. She
died Nov. 9, 1949, at the age of 91. Herwald later graduated from
the University of Arkansas
College
of Medicine, and he and his
wife are also buried at Oakland Cemetery.
Annie Schoppach's ashes
were interred at Oakland Cemetery with her son.
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