However strange it may seem the second lady physician to locate in Lincoln County is the only one of the various ladies having practiced here who still resides in Lincoln. We speak of Dr. Sarah A. Cole – another of Lincoln’s "Country Doctors" who retired from active service in 1936.
Dr. Cole was born October 23, 1855, on the Atlantic Ocean, the daughter of John and Mary Jane Cole, Scotch-Irish immigrants from County Down in northwestern Ireland.
Having first settled in Washington County, in the southwest corner of Pennsylvania, the Cole family moved to Marshall County, West Virginia, five and a half years later. The Cole homestead in West Virginia has remained the "family home" and the brother who now occupies it has been there constantly since 1871.
Dr. Cole attended the public schools in West Virginia, and she taught for three terms, 1876 to 1878. She taught the next three terms in Pennsylvania from whence she came to Kansas in February of 1882 to spend four years more in the teaching profession.
Dr. Cole began her medical education under the preceptorship of Dr. Sarah A. Goff, the first lady physician in Lincoln with whom she studied two years before entering the University of Iowa from whence she graduated in 1889. Dr. Cole located temporarily at Port Austin, Michigan, where she practiced for eight years during which time she was city health officer for three years and medical examiner for the Ladies of the Macabees. She took one year of post graduate work in the Homeopathic college and hospital at Chicago in the winter of 1897 and ’98, thus receiving her degree from the Hanneman Medical College in Chicago in 1898.
Because she had not forgotten her many friends in Lincoln, Kansas, Dr. Cole decided to locate here. She returned to Lincoln, accompanied by her sister, Hannah, on July 8, 1898. Although Dr. Goff had preceded her in Lincoln, Dr. Cole was the first lady physician to have attained her degree before setting up her practice in this locality; Dr. Goff practiced in Lincoln between her junior and seniors years and located in Topeka immediately following her graduation.
Dr. Cole practiced in the year known as the "horse and buggy days." Considering the fact that her territory included six counties, Lincoln, Saline, Mitchell, Osborne, Russell and Ottawa, and that she was compelled to travel under dire climatic conditions frequently, it is a remarkable tribute to this woman to have her sister, Miss Hannah and countless friends to state emphatically that Dr. Cole did not once turn down a call during her 46 active years of service in the medical profession.
Dr. Cole established a sanitarium, now called Cole Apartments, in 1901, and used it for the accommodation of emergency cases until 1927. The sanitarium had a capacity of ten patients with hospital facilities and all modern improvements. A Bath house annex containing apparatus for all kinds of water, electric, vapor and sun baths was completed in 1908.
The first three winters following her retirement, Dr. Cole resided in New Orleans, Overland Park and Monroe. She remained in Lincoln the past winter, however, and at present is living in the Cole Apartment building, the site of which was originally leased to Dr. Cole by Mr. W.S. Wait, Lincoln’s pioneer printer, for a period of 100 years.
Although not eligible to join the Half-Center Club of Lincoln County" Miss Hannah R. Cole is mentioned in connection with her sister at this time because she was closely associated in the founding of the Cole sanitarium; she contributed much of its support in the capacity of trained nurse – she also gave Osteopathic massage.
Miss Cole was born in Washington County, Pennsylvania, on November 14, 1860. At this point in her story Miss Hannah’s sense of humor which endears her to young and old, comes to the fore and she chuckles as she related a little "Believe It Or Not" which her family indulged in where cracking jokes. Her father was born November 19; he was married on November 12; and he proudly announced to the world the arrival of a daughter, his fourth, on November 14.
We can comprehend to a certain extent the pluck which enabled these women to carry on successfully under handicaps when we pause to reflect on certain aspects of their early training. For instance, they walked nearly five miles to church every Sunday in their childhood days, they were reared as staunch Presbyterians. Unthinkable as it would seem to the average youth of today, the children in Miss Cole’s family were obliged to walk three miles to school every day in the winter.
Miss Cole related an incident concerning Dr. Goff’s daughter, Anna, which we believe might interest the younger generation inasmuch as it reflects on the educational methods which prevailed in a preceding phase of our local history.
Anna Goff was left an orphan at the age of twelve. Because she seemed to be acquiring certain traits for associates in the Catholic convent at Denver to which her mother had sent her, one of her uncles, a Mr. Allen who believed his sister would want her little girl to remain a Protestant, put his niece in the care of Mrs. Anna Wait. Mrs. Wait, as many local citizens will recall, was one of Lincoln county’s pioneer educators. Having arrived in Lincoln, Anna Goff prepared to take the county eighth grade examinations. She was distraught to discover that she was eligible to take the exams except for one harassing factor – the Catholic school had not taught its students geography in the seventh grade. Only after her friends bolstered her faith with enthusiastic encouragement did Miss Goff endeavor to study geography sufficiently to pass her test with "flying colors." After completing her high school course, Anna attended the County Normal Institute which lasted on month when instead of one week as now. Having passed the teachers’ examinations Miss Goff was hired to teach in public school at the age of 17. Young people were eligible to teach prior to their eighteenth birthday at that time only in the event that they possessed a high school diploma.
Although her childhood woes and joys are merely fond memories now Miss Cole does have in her possession a realistic reminder of quaint methods which were practiced in a former day and which is still adequate to the strain of daily usage. Because it is practically obsolete in the face of modern equipment, and because of its remarkable age, we mention an old fashioned bread-mixing bowl which Miss Cole proudly exhibited. The bowl, approximately 90 years old, appears ot be about 20 inches in diameter, 4 inches deep; it is made from wood about one-half inch thick. Although the inner surface has always been scoured bright to show the grain of the wood in its natural color the outside appears to have been painted a solid dull green color. Except for one slight crack along the edge, the bowl appears as good as new. If wood could talk, we should not want for many an interesting story.
