As a tribute to Women’s History Month, this story was provided by the Sherman Room of the Mansfield/Richland County Public Library and originally published by the Mansfield News on July 10, 1921 on Page 10 of the Social Section. Those interested in more history should check out the Sherman Room at the Mansfield/Richland Public Library or visit this link.
MANSFIELD — One of the most pleasant hours I ever spent was the one in which I interviewed Dr. Ada Ford. M.D., physician and osteopath.
It wasn’t really an interview, it was just a charming, interesting talk, from a woman who has made a splendid success in a field, which, until a few years ago, not many women had entered.
In spite of that formidable looking M.D., and the hard conscientious work it has involved, Dr. Ford is still a very feminine woman, if one may call it that, her pet aversion being the mannish clothes and mannerisms that many women who have stepped out into the field of a broader endeavors, affect.
Perhaps a large part of her success is due to just that one thing, that she has retained the feminine traits of sympathy, attention to details and understanding.
As is the case of so many men and women who have made splendid successes in some chosen work, an illness which has been the turning point in so many lives, was the cause of Dr. Ford taking up the study of medicine.
“I have always been very interested in the theoretical side of things,” she said. “I love to study out a problem and follow up a theory. And when I went away for treatment, I became so interested that I decided to take up the work. I had at first intended to be a lawyer.
“My career has been unusually fortunate, right from the beginning. I never experienced any of the usual difficulties in getting started that so many women have had. While studying in Chicago, I lived at the home of one of the professors, a doctor who has been very famous in his line of work, and he helped me greatly.”
Dr. Ford was was asked if she would advise a girl to take up a profession like medicine?
“Yes, provided she stuck to it. But you must remember that that the preparation takes the first best years of a woman’s life, the time when most girls want to be playing.
“If a woman is broadminded enough, she will have an education that will make her appreciative of not only the beautiful, but of human nature. That’s what an education does, it gives one a bigger appreciation of life. Even if a woman were not to particularly use that education, she would have something that would fit her for any task.”
It is impossible to tell of all the splendid things Dr. Ford said, because she just talked to me and made me feel as if nothing was so important just then, but that. We were seated in her cool inner office, and when I entered she had swung around on her chair away from the desk at which she had been working and greeted me.
One of the questions put to her was about the unpleasantness a girl had to endure while taking such a training. She answered in her characteristic way.
“Any girl can go through with all the unpleasantness, and get to feel just casual and indifferent toward it all, but she must learn not to even blink. She must look the bull right in the eye, even if sometimes she wishes the earth would open and swallow her,” Dr. Ford said.
“Being a physician isn’t the only thing, of course, that women are succeeding at. I should think women would make the best juvenile judges. There is a broad field for the woman lawyer. For that work needs just a woman’s touch to make it most successful.
“Another business that it seems to me would provide an adequate road to success for a woman, would be insurance, for she would realize more that home side of that proposition.”
Aside from her profession, Dr. Ford is interested in any number of things.
“I am intensely interested in good drama,” she said. “And literature, particularly those novels which portray character studies. And women, I have found, have a more thorough knowledge of literature than men.
“Men are more able to discuss subjects pertaining to politics or electricity or technical things, but are not quite so broad when it comes to the arts, although women are becoming more interested in those things. And that is where a good education comes in. It will help a woman get a better perspective on life.”
