Nancy Ellimar

Marble Springs 2.0 screenshot of Nancy Ellimar

What we know

Nancy Ellimar
1858 - 1941

Born in Philadelphia, she left her family to attend medical school at the University of
Colorado. Midwife in Crystal River Valley from 1877 - 1929, when she retired to
Denver to live with her niece. Taught her trade to Straw Morrison, among others. Unmarried. No children of her own.

Doc Nancy

When you travel into the mountains
alone, the roots hold you.
They want to heal you
in secret.

Doc Nancy tried to explain it once.
But words tore at her throat the way
a flower tears when forced open.

Willow bark, they whisper,
will soothe Ruby's leg.
Wild cucumber seeds will cure
unmentionable sores. In secret,
she dosed Billie Rose and Bridget.
Squawroot seed for Anne’s eyes
and lemongrass tea when squawroot failed.
Mugwort leaves crushed into wine
eased Rachel Cole's sciatica. 

Rosehip pastes would sooth babies,
but they never did anything for
Bridget’s baby's screaming colic.
Shepherd’s purse to stop the bleeding
when babies kicked and tore from inside
and to give strength for a good birth.

Foxglove and ergot would lose babies,
the leaves giggled in her ear.
She gave ergot twice to Zandra Miller
before the girl turned fifteen,
and it had been painful both times.

But it was better than dying, the roots told her.
Better than living with shame.
She believed them and told Zandra that
it happened to every girl,
sooner or later.
Then she would pull out
her chokecherry wine¹—
for comfort.

Footnotes

1. Chokecherry wine
The chokecherries should be quite ripe. Stem, mash, and strain them, adding a half pint of water and less than a pound of sugar, to a quart of mashed fruit. Stir well up together and pour in a clean cask, leaving the bung-hole open, or covered with a piece of lace. It should stand for a month to ferment, when it will be ready for bottling. Everyday Cook Book

Connections

Portal

Sources

Cornell, Virginia.Doc Susie: The True Story of a Country Physician in the Colorado Rockies. California: Manifest Publications, 1991.

De Mund, Mary.Women Physicians in Colorado. Denver, Colorado: The Range Press, 1976

Forbes, Thomas Rogers.The Midwife and the Witch. New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University Press, 1966.

Hall, Dr. J.N.Tales of a Pioneer Practice. Denver, Colorado: Carson Printing, 1937.
Available at the Western History Department,Denver Public Library.

Mayer, Clarence.American Folk Medicine. New York: New American Library, 1987.

Shikes, Robert H.Rocky Mountain Medicine: Doctors, Drugs, and Diseases in Early Colorado. Boulder, Colorado: Johnson Books, 1986.

**Portal caption and links

A group of 3 jars with unknowable contents, a spider web connecting the larger 2.
White Owl
Quarry
Jail
Ladies Aid
Zandra Miller
Alvina Heollstar

Portal for secret connections