Category Archives: family history

At the start she was a docile wife,

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… but Rachel’s demeanor continued as a kind of obedience that came to offend Ephraim. beautiful wedding cake
The first skirmish was on their wedding night in August 1846. After the dancing and singing, drinking and eating, teasing and laughter, when at last they were shut in their bedroom alone, she was miserable.

‘Don’t look at me! Don’t look!’ she cried out. Ephraim, startled, turned from the door. She buried her face in her hands. ‘I said don’t look!’

So begins Chapter 2, The Cousin-Bride. Do have a read of Chapter 1 here on Amazon Look-Inside… and do join the fun of a whole gallery of photos of The Extraordinary Dr Epstein launch party under the Author page.

 

It is new, it is progress!

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‘If the patient survives the treatment, he’ll survive the illness,’ Ephraim said. ‘But this new dosing method sounds much more efficient — and safe!’

‘Convenient, too. Regrettably some physicians condemn it as quackery,’ his young colleague replied.

‘Why? Clearly this is not watered-down plants in sugar-pills, it’s alkaloids: measured, isolated, active principles. It is new, it is progress, a God-send!

Before the month was out Ephraim wrote to the Abbott Alkaloidal Company for a subscription to their journal and got with it, free, a leather-bound pocket case containing nine vials, each filled with one hundred alkaloidal granules. Among his choices: aconitine for fever, digitalin for heart and circulation, codeine for pain, coughs and colics, morphine sulphate for pain. A month of using the method — easy to handle, pleasant, efficient, effective — and he knew this was a cause he must champion. His passion drove him to action.

When Ephraim’s medical career began in 1859, bleeding, purging and herbal medicine guess-work were the modes of healing; click here  and here for a quick time-travel back to his life as a med student. In The Last Cause (Chapter 37) Dr Epstein happens upon a new form of medication and decides this is the future of medicine. He writes letters, then articles for the company’s journal. Finally in 1895 he travels to Chicago to meet Dr Wallace C Abbott, company founder. Ephraim was right, this era saw the vanguard of today’s scientific medicine. Abbott Pharmaceuticals now is a huge international corporation. Only a couple of years earlier the Chicago World’s Fair (lit up at night in the photo) displayed the latest in electricity, machinery, transport, industry, agriculture. Medicine, too, is part of the glittering future ahead.

Tumors and gunshot wounds…

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The ill health of human kind continued as ever: tumors and gunshot wounds, epilepsy and syphilis, pneumonia and cirrhosis, scarlet fever and ulcers, tuberculosis… for many conditions treatment was much the same as Dr Epstein had used nine years ago, before he gave up practice out of grief and guilt.

However, he had to learn about the medical advances. His old enemy from Monastir and Pola remained a scourge, but at least smallpox vaccination was becoming more accepted by the public. Yellow fever still broke out in port cities, but the search for its microbes was narrowing. Childbirth, as always, presented risks, but puerperal fever was less common, theories of cleanliness taking hold. Lister’s carbolic acid solution now swabbed most surgical procedures, and a recent medical journal said a solution of iodine had proved a good antiseptic. Ephraim’s faith in himself as a physician began to return.

In his mountainous West Virginia backwater Ephraim is in full time country medical practice. He travels the rough roads far in his horse and buggy, often taking one of the children — now there are seven — for company and to talk with them to improve their minds. In Chapter 36, Whither Thou Goest, Ephraim and Helena also get descriptions from his daughter Sister Sadie of the Czar’s new repressive May Laws of 1891 which suddenly forced more than ten thousand Jews to leave Moscow. But she, like he, is now Christian.  Doctor’s buggy photograph from http://www.countrydoctormuseum.org ; the museum is located in North Carolina.

Political chicanery

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Ousted! He was Founding President of the University of Dakota, but the second academic year was bittersweet for Ephraim. He could not regret that the institution was flourishing and his imprint was on every aspect of its success. But the Board of Regents of the university wanted a different president.

He campaigned for it, was invited to set it up and run it in 1882 until (in his own words) ‘sectarian and political chicanery ousted me.’

From the now University of South Dakota archives: [he] ‘held controversial religious views. Eventually Epstein was removed as president due to political motives by certain members of the Regents of Education when the territory assumed control of the university in 1883. There was also speculation that Dr Epstein had amassed a significant debt for contracting a house in Vermillion.’

A Baptist historical report says: ‘Many friends of the institution deeply regretted the discourtesy and ingratitude exhibited towards its founder.’

Pictured here, from usd.edu archives, the University of Dakota President’s House, North Yale Street, Vermillion. Was this the cause of ‘significant debt’? Normally in this blog-of-his-life I give passages from my biographical fiction, but this true event may yet be contentious today! So I have quoted here from the sources I found, and had a wonderful time imagining our way into Ephraim’s devastating experience (and the birth of another daughter, my grandmother Naomi Epstein) in Chapter 33, The Stone Rejected by the Builders. Will he recover from this? Oh yes — but how, where?

Father of a university

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Father of a university. Ephraim was fired with purpose — he accepted the offer: Founding President of Dakota University. He swore that no inquiring mind would be silenced in his university, he would ensure this would be written into the bylaws. Its motto would be Veritas.

Students! Books! Learning! The passionate campaigning of Ephraim and his fellow educationalists around the Territory had resulted in an enrolment of sixty-nine students. With University Hall not yet ready, on a clear day in early October 1882 the University of Dakota’s classes opened in Clay County Court House in Vermillion’s Main Street. The crowning joy of this first academic year came in June 1883 with the opening ceremony for University Hall. Six-year-old Frieda Epstein, in a new white dress, led a cortege of twenty children strewing daisies and pink roses to carpet the path to the hall.

At last Ephraim has faith and trust in a cause, and the cause has faith and trust in him. Since he abjured medicine on the tragic death of his son four years earlier this is the first position that fully utilizes his mental powers, experience, qualifications and knowledge. In Chapter 32, Veritas: President and Founder, he is flying high. But will it last?

University seal courtesy of usd.edu For link click Here

‘What are you trying to prove?’

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‘What are you trying to prove, Ephraim?’ Jacob took another bite of his fishcake.

heidelberg-ohio‘That Truth is the Way.’

‘That will carry you through,’ the old uncle airily dismissed the subject. ‘How is little Frieda? And the pretty Mrs Epstein.’

Ephraim told him about the baby due in autumn, and then plunged into his turmoil. ‘I can’t be a physician. But I cannot stay on as a silenced teacher.’

‘The Jews don’t like you because of your Jesus. And the Christians don’t like you because of your truth.’ Jacob laughed gently. ‘Do you ever think of keeping quiet?’

But we know by now that Ephraim cannot keep from acting on his truths. In Chapter 29, Professor Epstein, medical practice is impossible for the still-grieving physician. He has lasted one successful year as a teacher of Hebrew and scripture at Heidelberg College in Tiffin, Ohio. Because of his outspokenness he now must invent himself once again… but as what, where?

‘I cannot go on doctoring’

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p1040596‘How can I trust myself? How can I know who may die at these hands.’

‘Ephraim,’ Helena murmured, trying to banish his thought with soothing.

‘I am cursed, cursed. God has punished me. I cannot heal, I kill.’

‘It was not you! It was Mr Maxwell’s mistake.’

‘But my hand wrote the scrip!’ Ephraim roared as stood up, making the chair fall over, and he left the room.

In Chapter 28, God Forsaken, Ephraim shakily emerges from grief over the death of his four-year-old son. Instead of quinine, the chemist had accidentally used morphine in medicine for the ill child. Ephraim blames himself. He descends into black depression. Of course I had to recreate his mental breakdown using my imagination. In his own words Ephraim Epstein says, ‘It [his son’s death] came near to breaking my heart and ending my life. I could not practise medicine any more.’ This abstinence was to last nine years. Meanwhile he has to find a way to support his wife and remaining child, baby Frieda.

7,500 Miles for a Wife

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sarah-weds-c-new-york-times-24-dec-1874When fact is perfect for fiction… this highly romantic episode was no more than family lore when I began writing the novel of Dr Epstein’s life. Then California cousin CB sent me wonderful evidence of truth.

‘As to the wooing there is a bit of romance. In an album at the house of some relatives in St. Petersburg, the young merchant saw a photograph of Miss Sarah. In a twinkling of an eye he fell in love, and expressed an ardent with to see the fair original. Correspondence followed… with the result above stated.’ The New York Times December 24, 1874.

In Chapter 26, Perjured, determined daughter Sadie defeats her father. Ephraim overrides his resistance to her marriage — but at what cost?

She Voices

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she-voices-women-writers

Feisty writing women have a date with Ephraim… I’ll be reading from The Extraordinary Dr Epstein, a chapter included in the anthology Notes on a Page launched Saturday 3 December, 2 – 4 pm at Richmond Library in west London. He’s alongside short stories, memoir, lyrics, poetry… tea & cake too!

Notes on a Page is published collaboratively by Palewell Press and Dark Mourne Press http://www.palewellpress.co.uk/Palewell-Publications.html http://www.darkmournepress.com/

To circumcise or not?

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babies-smiling-150923For many men the birth of a son is a great thing, and for Ephraim perhaps especially so when William was born to Helena in 1874. He knew what it was to be the first born son of his parents, the longed for male. This joy in a son was bred in his bones and could not be denied. Equally undeniable was consideration of circumcision. He himself was circumcised, of course, by a mohel at the bris at eight days of age, as all Jewish boys were. Ephraim’s personal life, his profession and his Jewish-Christian faith constellated in a crisis.

 

In Chapter 25, Doctor and Family Man, at last Ephraim has contentment, crowned by the birth of a son. But this raises issues. As his great granddaughter I can only assume that Ephraim was circumcised. I have dared to imagine that he had a dilemma over this issue for his own son. This is backed by factual circumstantial evidence: his published letter-battle with a southern physician in the professional Medical and Surgical Reporter in 1874, exactly the year of son William’s birth. The exchange escalated to the point of Ephraim’s fiery outrage on the whole issue of Jewish ‘superiority’. In his own words: ‘The singular perseverance of the Jews in health is a mean fiction…’ 

His conflict shows: he both defends and attacks Judaism. In medical circles at the time circumcision was thought to be good for health. But Ephraim believed it had become a religious political issue; the choice he made could be seen as taking sides. About his boy? My imagination has Ephraim decide against. And gives Helena very little say.