Unexpected

My Mom learned that she was expecting me shortly after she had begun working as Dr. Harry's partner. In the 1950s, many employers "released" pregnant women from their work duties: the assumption was that a woman who had a child could not pursue a career. Dr. Harry, however, assured my Mom that she could continue to practice medicine throughout her pregnancy and after she delivered the baby. Dr. Harry, like Mom, was European, and he came from a culture in which easily half of the practicing physicians were women.

Mom kept working. She made one accommodation: she refused to make a housecall on the day before I was born. She couldn't drive. She had pushed the car seat so far back to accommodate her belly, that her feet no longer reached the gas pedal.

Until the pregnancy, my Parents had been living in a rental apartment. They decided to buy one of the homes under construction in a nearby, new development.

Friends lent my Parents money for a downpayment. When my Parents visited the bank to secure a mortgage, the bank refused to consider Mom's wages as part of the family's income. As a result, the bank initially denied the loan. The man, after all, was the "bread winner," and women worked only for "pocket money." Besides, a woman might get pregnant, and then her income would evaporate, jeopardizing the family's ability to pay its mortgage.

The bank came around after Dr. Harry vouched for Mom. My parents moved into the house about seven months before I arrived.

Suburban Chicago, December 1958. The house stood on a quiet street.

Licensed

This is the photo my Mom submitted when she applied for an Illinois medical license. She flew alone from New York to Chicago to take the boards.  Even though she had been in this country for less than five years—and only had learned the English language in the last four years—Mom passed the examinations on her first try.

Mom practiced medicine in the Chicago suburbs for over thirty years. She had a great medical partner who treated her kindly and accommodated her family life.

Nonetheless, it was a bumpy road for a woman to take in the mid-1950s.

Brooklyn, New York, 1954. My Mom is ready to go to Chicago to take the boards. This was her first trip on an airplane. Mom stayed at the historic La Salle Hotel while she visited Chicago.

Contract

Here's Mom with Dr. Harry, her partner in the medical practice.

I asked Mom what papers she was signing when Dad took this photo.

"How am I supposed to remember what I signed fifty years ago?"

My Dad photographed many every-day events, but this is probably the only photograph of Dr. Harry that we have. Dad thought this was an important, different, moment. The signing occurred in January; that leads me to think it was an employment contract for the upcoming year.

Was Mom signing the papers that boosted her from a forty-percent partner to a fifty-percent one? Dr. Harry was very good to my Mom, and in 1962, Mom already had been working with Dr. Harry for just over five years.

Suburban Chicago, January, 1962. Mom and Dr. Harry are in the living room, at that coffee table we still use. Mom wears a stay-at-home outfit; namely, a pencil skirt and simple sweater. Dr. Harry usually wore bow ties. Those must be Dr. Harry's cigarettes because Mom smoked a different brand.

After both physicians retired, Dr. Harry called my Mom every year to wish her a Happy Birthday. We knew Dr. Harry had died when that telephone call did not come through one year.