Mary Harris Thompson: Breaking Down Barriers for Women in Medicine. And a Taste of Candy

 Have you ever driven through a town after nightfall, passing homes with their windows darkened and others glowing from within, and wondered, who lives there, what are their hopes and dreams, what is their story?


If you take Route 149 into Fort Ann, N.Y., tucked away in the northeast corner of the state next to the Vermont border (ssh, Vermont used to be a county of New York!), and you stop at Grumbellie’s Eatery and then head into the residential neighborhoods, you’ll be through them and out of town again before you’ve finished your pizza slice.


Population as of 2020, 5,812 – barely beating the city of Bisbee way out on the border with Arizona.


But in this little town, on April 15, 1829, the first cry of a newborn baby girl was heard, who would in her 66 years change the world of medicine.


Mary Harris Thompson’s achievements are many:


  • One of the first women to practice medicine in Chicago.

  • Inventor of the abdominal needle for surgery.

  • Founder of the Chicago Hospital for Women and Children.

  • Founder of the Woman’s Hospital Medical College.

  • For years, the sole woman performing major surgery in Chicago.

  • First woman to serve as an officer of the Chicago Medical Society.

She survived the Great Chicago Fire of 1871, which burned down all the buildings of the Women’s Hospital Medical College as well as the Chicago Hospital for Women and Children. Unstoppable, she rebuilt.


After a life spent healing people, and paving the way for other women in the medical field, Mary died suddenly from a cerebral hemorrhage. From busy Chicago, her remains were returned to rest in quiet little Fort Ann.

I have no idea what this diligent and determined woman enjoyed on her plate at the end of a busy day. Chicago certainly has a lot to offer in the culinary world. Or did she prefer the foods of her childhood in upstate New York? So many of these groundbreaking women who lived long before the Internet Age, were too busy changing the world to scribble down their favorite recipe for posterity.


But I did find an interesting blog that collects historic recipes from upstate New York, including this one for “sponge candy.” Maybe this icon of medicine, had a sweet tooth for something like this.  

Buffalo Sponge Candy - Home in the Finger Lakes





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