The Los Angeles Times from Los Angeles, California • 38

ZIAECH 20, 1927. PART PUNDAY MORNING. or 6 )) do GAR me crmsrwex to we Sternal Question c3facingWomen of Soday -V vvvv vvv vvvv vvvvvvvvvvvvvvvv vvvvv '4 ing her engagement to Richard Wayne Crook, a succesnful young business man of Los Angeles. So they were married and lived happily ever afterward. Only as Mrs.

Crook says "ever" is a long, long time and if she can postpone the "afterward" indefinitely in the belief there Is still much happiness to grasp Just around the corner, she feels pretty safely stowed away in tha treacherous bark called matrimony. Although a few years ago Margaret Locmls's acquaintances would have said domesticity would never suit her, those of her friends who knew her best would have argued the point, for they would have been familiar with her thoroughness and would have guessed that she would make the home in which sho lived a real home and not a house in which to entertain celebrated guests. rf, V1 V' V'V VV" first tooth, I think I was Just as excited. "From the moment I fell in love with my husband, I knew my career was going glimmering. I kept on with It until I.

was quite sure but I am not the sort of woman who could do justice to a career, marriage and children and I knew it "Mind you, I think there are many such super worn en today; but I'm not one of them. Mine is the single-track mind, I'm afraid. I simply could not manage a home, husband and children and any sort of a career at the same time. Possibly if I had a big talent for writing, I might have combined the two careers but not as a dancer or an actress. One can write in odd hours and at home and still have the Joy of one's family, but I believe even in that one or the other must suffer.

said the Queen. 'Myself and every woman in the world is proud of you! That was all she said and then she began to weep. I forget those words. Because of the stubborn prejudice against all women In outside endeavors kindred to men's occupations manifest in the British Isles and virtually the whole world Dr. Carman was forcei to call upon her sister Mary tor assistance.

The two young women opened up a drug store near Trafalgar Square, London, and ran this store for several years. Then came the urge to go to America and engage in her chdsen profession. This urge was instigated by a letter revived from the dean of the Cleveland, Medical College. A request was made that Dr. Carman, of whom they iiad heard, visit their institution.

"I returned to this country which I dearly love because of its opportunities in 1874. Going to Cleveland and studying the American requirements within time, received my American diploma to practice medicine. I was treated with all the consldera-' tlon a woman could want but I did not particularly like Cleveland. I had heard of California. "My sister, who by the way has been my most valuable assistant tor many years, and started in an old covered wagon to take an Indian trail to California." Before Dr.

Carman went on she pointed to a little old lady who It was learned is but two years younger but equally as alert as herself. While Dr. Carman Is able to sit up in a wheel chair her sister is propped up in bed with many pillows to ease her. Honored by Chicago "When we reached, Chicago, which was along the route," continued Dr. Carman, "we ran pell mell into the Chicago fire.

1 could not. help but stop and lend the aid that was in my medical knowledge. 'When I offered this id grails tha officials scorned Kir '3 4 vvvv "I left my career without a qualm and I wouldn't go back to it for anything on eartb; "One of my friends asked me If I were suddenly called upon to help my husband out in the bread-and-butter question what I would do. Frankly I don't know but I think I should dance again. It satisfied me more thoroughly than pictures.

"1 have made about half of my home with my own hands I painted everything for the, kitchen including the salt and pepper shakers; I decorated the tables and chairs and I made my child's wardrobe, every stitch by hand. I am as domestic as it is possible for anyone to be and I adore it; I wallow in my shame, as some of my professional friends tell me. "Once I thought I should like to take a fling at It all again. My husband thoroughly understood the thought that, a woman knew anything about aid In a medical line and could put it to practical application in a trying time like this. "But I finally received reluctant permission and after the blaze was officially awarded a solid gold medal for what was characterized as 'supreme Then Dr.

Carman went on to tell of how she finally reached California and saw Los Angeles and almost passed by thinking it was merely a few houses grouped around a mesa. Some Inward urge prompted Dr. Carman to stop, she declares. She has lived here ever since and has engaged in the practice. of medicine, thus giving the city of Los Angeles and the State of California the' unique distinction of having within its boundaries the oldest and first woman doctor, have received official recognition from reputable medical authorities as a regularly licensed physician.

And it was less than three years ago that Dr. Carman was forced to abandon her profession which she has followed those many years. It was not even her fault and she tells of bow an unidentified ruffian rudely knocked her down while she was crossing a downtown street. Her hip was fractured and she was stricken blind. "But 1 am still Carman cheerfully concluded.

Many people now living in Los Angeles have at one time or an- other been her patients. She has done charity work by donating her services without charge to many in the Mexican Mission and other places here In Los Angele3. She is president of the Los Angeles Federation of the Women's Christian Temperance Unldn which at the present time Is rising a $600,000 fund to build and endow this home for aged women where the youngest is 70 and the oldest Vt, mis Visualize her, therefore In her spacious living-room, a warm, colorful, comfortable room in which oriental tones predominate for Margaret Loomis excelled in oriental dances, in writing quaint oriental verse, in enacting oriental roles, in wearing oriental costumes and in thinking mystic and oriental thoughts. "To me, life was never com-plicated for myself; others made it complex for me sometimes but I knew what I wanted and I went straight for it," she said as a preface to her views on marriage and a career. Takes Up Dancing "1 wanted to dance, so I became a dancer.

My parents did not object; I was an only child and they wanted me to be happy. was Just a matter of deciding on what form of the dance to take up. I saw Ruth St. Denis and of our family for generations to have a medical "man" in the pages of the book of the family tree. In this simple way Dr.

Carman in her own words tells the story of how she started on the long uphill fight which is topped eventually by an apex of rial success. Let hor tell more of it "I was born in 1837. As a girl I was considered frail and my mother sent me to a seminary on the outskirts of London. In many ways this seminary was as Bevere and the rules as rigid as many convents in those days. But when my father was dying he sent for 'me and clutching me close to his breast said; 'Harriet I have but a few hours longer to live.

I have given what money I possessed and the health that was once mine on the altar of a struggle for a physician's license. I failed. You are a mere girl. I have faith In you. the torch and my faith In you and carry on." Shingle Hung Out in War During the worst part of the Civil War a newly licensed physician bung out a shingle.

That was In Cleveland. It was none other than Dr. Carman, who had at last fulfilled her dying father's wish. She was at that time the only other living woman doctor In the world and the only one In the entire United States. By a peculiar twist of fate Dr.

Carman as a girl barely out of her teens was given the opportunity to come to the United States as the guest of a dear friend of her family. A doctor aboard a sailing vessel traveling between the States and the British Isles was the friend in question. Ills wife was to accompany him on this voyage and as a companion for her ho had persuaded the youthful Carman girl to go along. The voyage lasted almost a month and when the ship finally reached the harbor of New York the doctor was disgusted with Ufa at sea and made arrangements to go to Quincy. Mich.

He took young Harriet Carman along with his wife. Found First Woman Doctor Here 14 TV, VV vvvv vvvvv the desire and encouraged me to try it. I did but I soon found it didn't work out; I just could not get up any of my old enthusiasm. "Perhaps I was not born to make the magnificent gesture; simple things please me. I am working out a system for my son's welfare; by the time he is old enough to have it tried on, I shall have abandoned it no doubt and he will never know how close he came to being somebody quite different "When I am asked If I am happy I can truthfully say, I am happier than I have ever been.

I don't want to be so supremely happy that I cannot grow and develop. "1 have really educated myself since my marriage. Not that I wasn't supposed to have been finished before but now I read and study what I want to know; I give of my talpnts whatever they are when I can see some good accruing from my efforts. Blow to Many Friends "And I enjoy, going to the Woman's Club. "That will be the final blow to some of my professional friends, for I had always thought such clubs boring to the last degree.

Now I see them as outlets for women of all ages and classes; they stimulate the imagination and they do a tremendous amount of good, also they cause women better to understand and appro--elate each other. "Formerly my critical faculties were developed to the point of the ridiculous; now I look back and at myself. I still find ser-eral things to- criticise mostly in myself. "There are no complexes eating at my vitals; I feel no great, overwhelming need express myself; I love my family, my friends, my home and my garden; thesj are enough. "If I hfl( a yearning for a career, I should certainly go out and pursue it; nobody stops me; in fact it I wanted to sign a ten- year contract and it were offered me tomorrow, I could do it but nothing ol earth would induce me to unless we had to have the money.

"Of course I am not satisfied with-my life who is? I don't suit myself yet, thank goodness. But I find the career of wifenood, motherhood and the making of a home quite as absorbing if not as exciting as any other career. They are different but if one is conscientious in the actual business of making a husband and children happy and of keeping up a home in all that it means It is i man's size Job even today with all the conveniences. There are plenty of thrills In it. toe If one must have thrills." As I left Margaret Loomis-Crook, I wondered If she.

with all Lr talents, her cleverness, her philosophy, required all her energies for the happiness of her family and home what other woman could really expect to make a success of both a career and a domestic life? Yet 1 know many who are apparently doing so. I have it nearly all my friend ar superwomenl. a. Wilcox graphic quality, but I dare say they too had to think of some angle or some little defect that might crop up on the screen. "Some persons are better fighters than others; I can fight, but do not enjoy It I am too analytical.

I nsed always to be asking myself: 'Is it worth IVTiat Is It all 'One signed a good contract and thought one's troubles were ever; hey had just There-were a thousand and one things bobbing up continually to distract one and sometimes the very safety of the contract proved a stumbling block to one's ambitions. Hectic While It Lasted "It was all very hectic and very fascinating while it lasted but for myself I always hoped and felt that beyond all the superficial life we were living, there must be something else more satisfying to the mental processes and to that evanescent thing we call the soul. "There are many who may contend that I did not have the true flair for public career, that I did not take it seriously and they may be right "Probably there is no greater thrill than to. realize that one is projecting oneself Into the consciousness of thousands, even millions of persons 'out whose letters, pouring in by every mail tell of their appreciation of one's performance. Maybe another thrill as great comes when one is literally drowned in the applause of an appreciative audience.

Both go to the head and are well worth striving for but when my little son cut his Van Shyke ers. Yer he said, 'and we need medics now. If you make an attempt to leave you'll go for good! Therefore we stayed for a whole year. Honored by Queen After leaving Quincy the doctor, his wife and Dr. Carman went back to England.

It was shortly after this that Dr. Carman's name became immortalized. She received her degree as the first woman doctor to be given to the world outside of Dr. Mary Walker, Queen Victoria, who was present on the occasion, tenderly wept on Dr. Carman's shoulder.

She relates the Incident: "Queen Victoria came in all her queenly state to see me receive my diploma. People actually looked with scorn upon my person. Even the professors Held aloof. It was not until the Queen came that I received my composure to remain and not run sway and hide my face forever from the world. By Grace that was the sort of dancing I wanted to do.

Later, I wanted to make a lot of money quickly and to project my personality and whatever talent I had into the lives of millions of people Instead of thousands. 1 chose the motion picture as a means of expression. "While I was in the midst of my career, I knew nothing else. I gave myself over to it and I accomplished in general what I set out to do. I should have gone farther if another interest had not usurped the place of the first.

I do not mean that my career satisfied me; it did not I liked it; I enjoyed the scramble for my place in the sun, I appreciated the contacts I made In it, the interesting people I met but I always felt it was Just a step: somewhere around the corner was something else in which sincerity played a bigger part. "The trouble with the stage and screen today Is that one has to spend so much time in playing the game; the competition is so keen that it requires a continuous effort to sell one's talents-after one has used them enough to be able to compare them favorably those of others. "Every screen star I have ever known has been obliged to overcome some handicap: if her facial beauty is flawless, her hand3 and feet are not quite right or her body is not perfectly proportioned or perhaps she cannot project her personality. "With the exception of what I call the 'lucky all the girls I knew were fighting a good fight against some' sort of obstacle in order to gain stardom. There were about a dozen who seemed to have every photo By James "When we came to Quincy," said Dr.

Carman in relating the strry, "the town was infested with and a plague was doing all possible damage. Bodies, had to be carted away by the cartload. Men would call at the doors each sunset and call out: 'Are there any If an affirmative answer was given the man would go inside and before long the body would be shoved through one of the front windows. No time was lost with formality in a time like this. "The doctor and I lent the help we had.

The doctor was one of five physicians in the town and he used me as assistant. It was there that I performed -bit first operation. And that was on a woman who had an abscess. It was ft successful operation and gave me the confidence to carry on. It was nearly twelve months before we were able to get away from Quincy where we were forcibly restrained by a sheriff wltft T9 Terr convincing six shoot.

few" yf I ZyV RE you planning to yU give up a career for marriage or marriage tor a career? Perhaps you are engaged iu a successful encounter with both at the same time er possibl) you are ineffectually Struggling with the greatest problem ever given to woman to olve. In any event the story of Margaret Loom's Crook, famous three years ago as a DenlHhawn dancer and motion-picture actress, who chose marriage at the tenith of her career, may throw one light on the perplexing puzzle. Her fan mall once ran more than a thousand letters a day, but she Is now content with two telephone calls from one fan In ight hours. For the first time in the history of civilization, woman is confronted with a definite choice tf what she ehall do with her life. Until approximately thirty years ago, she knew what was expected of her and she gravitated toward marriage as naturally as a humming-bird toward a Jasmine flower stopping not to Question why.

If she had a special talent, she seldom let that interfere with matrimony; she played with it until she married, then she let it go, along with other childish things. There was not much room for ler gifts in the world anyway; ef course if she wanted to go on the stage or be queer in some -way like that, she could, but it wasn't being done often in the beBt families, without a row that left the would-be actress too weak to pursue her career. It seems only yesterday that Margaret Loomis first appeared before a Los Angeles audience in a Denishawn dance at the Mason Operahouse. Makes Debut Here She was so well known in this, her home city, that she confided to Ruth St Denis a nervous qualm regarding her diaphanous costume. She was assured, bow-ever, that it would be impossible to do a Greek dance In four petticoats and that a slight shoek to ft few friends was preferable to inartistic performance.

Her career "Jelled" from that moment, for she made a tremendous hit before a theater filled with her friends and acquaintances the most critical audience In the world. After a successful tour all over the United States as one of the first dancers in the Dunishawn group, she returned to Los An-jeles and entered pictures. Her regular features, charmof manner, graceful figure and the gift of wearing all costumes equally well, together with a distinct histrionic talent soon placed her among the most famous of the younger screen artists. i'laying opposite such stars us Thomas Meighan, the late Wallace Reld, Bryant Washburn, Farl Williams, Kessue Hayakawa, Maclean, Thedore Roberts and as Modesty in, "Every-woman, Miss Looml wb st the top of her career, when one day e'K eurprised her prcfysisional iii.3 society friends by announc IS ANGELES Is gifted with many remarkable dsL ulaces of interest and peupie with truly remarkable histories. Take for example the story of a little eld lady who lives at the home for aged women maintained by the Women's Christian Temperance Union at 215 South Avenue 57.

Her name la Dr. Harriet W. Carman and she is ninety years of age. She has the distinction of being the first woman, beside the long dead but famous Dr. Mary Walker, to receive a diploma to practice medicine In Great Britain.

Carman is the oldest living doctor of her sex In the world. She also was the first woman In the United States to receive a license to engage in the pursuit of medical science. This modest old lady has lived here for twenty-seven years and asserts that only because of the beneficial living conditions which she found when she came, looking for healthful surrounding suitable to her none too strong general physical condition at that time was she able to survive to this day. Exactly how Dr. Carman became a doctor in a day and age when young girls were prohibited especially the Old World from even thinking of a professional calling makes us interesting a tale as has been related in many moons along similar lines.

W3 all get a certain sort of Inspiration by lending an ear to the exploits that were necessary and the Instruments fate used in creating a master of finance but the struggles of a stripling girl to become a physician In the face of sex prejudice and every conceivable obstacle from, poor health to limited family means and downright convention merl's a brief play of the spotlight at any rale. "I became a physician after my poor father who had lain on a sick bed for more than twenty years called me to his bedside in last hour on earth and urged to carry on the whsa in.