This week I’m hosting Yvonne Lehman with Seeking Mr. Perfect, Cynthia Hickey with Taming the Sheriff (US only), and Patty Smith Hall with The Doctor’s Bride. If you want to enter the drawings for the books, please leave a comment on one of the post during the week with your email address. I will not enter you without an email address (my way to contact you if you win). If you don’t want to leave an email address, another way you can enter is to email me at margaretdaley@gmail.com. The drawings end Sunday (Nov. 17th) evening.
Heroine Interview from The Doctor’s Bride by Patty Smith Hall:
1. Dr. Clark, tell me the most interesting thing about you. Please, call me Katie. My dad is also a physician so he goes by Dr. Clark. Most folks just call me Katie or Dr. Katie. Hmm, the most interesting thing about me. Well, I’m hoping to start a nursing school here in Hillsdale. A friend of mine from college worked with a Miss Nightingale who has written a very detailed plan on training nurses that I feel will provide better medical care to outlying areas, particularly here in Michigan. If only I can get Elizabeth Whipple, the principal of the female students on my side but that’s a long shot.
2. What do you do for fun? I love spending time with my friends, Liberty and Ursula, though the two of them are as different as night and day. Maybe that’s why I liked them both so much! I also like to play chess although I’m not very good at it.
3. What do you put off doing because you dread it? Like most folks, I hate doing bills, mainly because I worry I wouldn’t have enough money to buy the supplies we need to keep our practice open. Dad receives a salary to teach at the college and tend to the residents of the town. Right now, I’m offering my services for free as a way to build up my practice.
4. What are you afraid of most in life? Of always being considered second choice. I didn’t think much about it until Josh came to town–Josh is Dr. Joshua McCain, a childhood friend from Abbeville, South Carolina and it appears, my fiancé. I always knew I’d have an uphill battle convincing the town’s people that I was a competent doctor, but having Josh arrive in town to break the marriage contract between us seems to have stirred up feelings I didn’t know even existed.
5. What do you want out of life? To practice medicine in Hillsdale. To have man in my life who understands how important my work is to me, that I consider being a doctor my mission field. A partner, someone who respects and loves me. And children. But I don’t know if that’s possible with me being a doctor and all.
6. What is the most important thing to you? To matter, to have a life full of meaning and purpose. To be the woman God wants me to be.
7. Do you read? If so, what is your favorite type of book to read? I read a great many medical books so I can keep up with new techniques and treatments. And there’s a book of poetry under my mattress that no one, not even my dad, knows about.
8. If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be? I’d be more assertive, but my concern for my father’s position in the community and with the college restrains me from responding the way I’d like sometimes.
9. Do you have a pet? If so, what is it and why that pet? No pets right now, but I’d love a puppy, a small dog, maybe a dachshund. Something I can cuddle up with on the couch and love on after a hard day at work.
10. If you could travel back in time, where would you go and why? I don’t know if I’d travel back in time–maybe forward, to a time where my being a doctor would be more accepted. Where a woman doctor would be the norm rather than the exception.
