By Rebecca Goodman
The Cincinnati Enquirer

Dr. Wright

SPRINGDALE - When Emily Ellyn Wright was in the third grade, she told her teacher she wanted to be a doctor.

The teacher gently but firmly told her she couldn't because there's no such thing as a woman doctor.

Little Emily, who never grew taller than 5 feet, refused to accept an outright "you can't do that." She did become a doctor, even though she had to stand on a wooden box to perform surgeries.

Dr. Wright - a popular Cincinnati Ob/Gyn who delivered almost 5,000 babies - died Sunday. A resident of Maple Knoll Village in Springdale, she was 73.

Strengthened by the assurances of her mother, El Vera Grandquist Wright, Dr. Wright believed from an early age she could be whatever she wanted to be.

"This premise was not widely true or accepted 50 years ago," said brother-in-law Jim Cochran of Wyoming. "She had clear goals and objectives. She stayed focused on these things and worked with great energy and determination to make her dream come true, overcoming many skeptics and naysayers in the process."

Born and raised in Huntington, W.Va., Dr. Wright received a bachelor's in chemistry from Marshall University in 1942. Because no women were accepted into medical schools during World War II, Dr. Wright had to wait until 1946 to enter the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine. She put herself through by working as a lab technician at Christ Hospital, receiving her degree in 1950.

This was followed by a one-year internship at Gallinger Municipal Hospital in Washington, D.C., and a three-year residency at Cincinnati's Bethesda Hospital - where she was the first female chief resident. She was on staff at Bethesda throughout her career.

In 1954, Dr. Wright entered a group practice with five other doctors at the Wyoming Medical Center.

She delivered babies at the old Maple Knoll Home, which had many unwed mothers as patients. (It later became Maple Knoll Village for seniors.)

Her forte was delivering high-risk pregnancies. She did it with compassion and common sense, telling the staff at Maple Knoll Village long after she retired that, "I never lost a mother. I just treated patients as I would like to be treated. That's all."

Among the babies she delivered were 57 sets of twins and one set of triplets. She relished those deliveries because they were challenging and exciting, said her sister, Patty Cochran of Wyoming.

Dr. Wright attended birthday parties for the triplets for about 12 years.

She moved her practice from Wyoming to Forest Park in 1976 and retired in 1987.

During her 33-year career, Dr. Wright took a month off almost every year to travel. She went overseas 26 times. But these were not merely pleasure trips. She visited clinics in Botswana, Africa, and Hanson's Disease Hospital in Swaziland to perform hysterectomies. She also attended a series of lectures on penguin species in Antarctica.

Dr. Wright kept a boat on Manitoulin Island in Canada and often spent her vacations there. One summer she filleted 420 fish, then handed them to friends to cook because she couldn't cook.

After her retirement, Dr. Wright took up model shipbuilding to keep her hands limber. She carved them with surgeons' tools, then sanded, stained and varnished the scale models. Among the 17 ships she created were replicas of the Mayflower and the Beagle, the ship that took Charles Darwin to South America.

Dr. Wright used to raise appaloosas on her farm in Wyoming. She also worked as a volunteer at St. Rita's School for the Deaf - tending a booth at the festival - and at the Cincinnati Zoo, helping transplant embryos of endangered species.

In addition to her sister and brother-in-law, survivors include nieces and nephews.

Visitation is 12:30-1:30 p.m. Monday at Klingel-Carpenter Mortuary in Huntington, W.Va. A graveside service will be 2 p.m. at Spring Hill Cemetery.

Memorials: St. Rita School for the Deaf, 1720 Glendale-Milford Road, Cincinnati 45215; or the First Congregational Church, 600 C St., Ceredo, WV 25507.

E-mail rgoodman@enquirer.com