Dr. Susan Anderson

Who is she? I had never heard of her until my return trip to Colorado. Keep in mind, I grew up there. I have been all over the Rocky Mountains camping, fishing, backpacking, and skiing.

Never heard of her until two weeks ago.

She was a doctor in Fraser, CO. She ended up in Colorado as a child when her father divorced (in those days, scandalous) her mother and moved the children to Cripple Creek, CO during the huge gold rush of 1892. He made his fortune no as a prospector, but as a business man. Her father remarried, and decided both of his children should get educated, and sent her to Michigan to become a doctor. It also got Susan away from the new step mother. They did not like each other at all.

After contracting TB, Susan came back to Colorado to nurse her lungs. Many TB patients came for that reason. High altitude and cold air seemed to do the trick. She moved around a bit after finding no jobs as a doctor, and landed in Fraser, where she stayed until close to her death in 1960. She was not immediately accepted as s doctor. Women aren't doctors, you know. But when the other two town doctors were unavailable, and someone had fallen off a horse and broken their arm, that didn't seem to matter suddenly. Slowly but surely, she developed her practice. Mostly on injured loggers, farmers, and miners. Fraser is a distance and a tedious railroad ride from Cripple Creek.

She ended up being a respected doctor to the town of Fraser, when women could not vote. She never married. Although her father thwarted a marriage in Cripple Creek, and her groom left her at the altar. Her brother also died of pneumonia in Cripple Creek after her father delayed getting any help. Cripple Creek didn't have great memories for her, except her brother was buried there.

One of her dying wishes was to be buried next to her brother. When 1960 came around, attempts were made to find her brother's burial site in Cripple Creek. But the Mt. Pisgah cemetary was a shambles. She is buried there, though not directly next to her brother.

Today, historians are making huge attempts to clean up the cemetary. Identify occupants, and honor those who are there.

So while we were there, we visited her grave. I also picked up her biography "Doc Susie: The True Story of a Country Physician in the Colorado Rockies". I am riveted by it.

So the next time you watch a rerun of "Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman". Just remember Doc Susie.