FRANCES MATILDA WETMORE

On July 26, 1867, Frances' beloved brother, Charlie, died suddenly at the age of fourteen. This tragedy served to strengthen her desire to become a doctor. At fifteen she had exhausted all that local sources could offer in the way of education, and in April, 1870, she was sent to relatives in New England to continue her studies. There she attended Mount Holyoke College at South Hadley, Massachusetts.

After graduation, Frances returned to Hilo where the greater part of her time was spent in her father's drug store. In Dr. Wetmore's absence, she waited on customers and helped patients. So successful was she in caring for their needs that Dr. Wetmore wrote to his sister that people were sending for her to doctor them and added, "she will use her needle better in surgery, I think, than for anything else."

In 1879 Frances left Hilo to enter Woman's Medical College in Philadelphia. Apparently, she received her M.D. by the end of 1882, since by January, 1883, she had returned to Hilo and was her father's partner. Affectionately known as Dr. Fanny, she was beloved by the Hawaiians and had a circle of friends including nearly everyone on Hawaii. In 1888 she was appointed government physician for Hilo by the Board of Health, in all probability, the first woman to ever hold such a position in the Islands. Her salary was $600 a year. In 1889 she was made consulting physician at Hilo Hospital.

In the course of a long and active life, Dr. Fanny was a member of the Cousins' Society (from 1856), Woman's Board of Missions of the First Foreign Church, trustee of the property of the Aloha Circle of King's Daughters and Sons (charter member in 1889), secretary of the Free Kindergarten Committee, trustee of the Hilo Boarding School (from 1898), and trustee of the Hilo Public Library.

On March 12, 1919, Dr. Wetmore died at Hilo within a few months of her 64th birthday.

In Memoriam Index