Today's four anniversaries

Make what you will of today's anniversaries. I'm feeling unwell and thus in an ill mood to try to tie them together with a coherent narrative or such.

1904: On July 11, Mrs. Morris Swanson died at her home from an abortion performed there that day. Midwife Constance Marie Anderson was arrested and held by Coroner's Jury on July 15. That's all I have. My best efforts have failed to so much as learn the woman's name. (Pet peeve: The way women became "Mrs. John Smith" at marriage. I nearly broke a tooth grinding my jaws so hard when I was browsing a room at the Red Cross and there were pictures of one accomplished and hard-working Red Cross leader after the other identified by her HUSBAND'S freaking name. Her name wasn't "Mrs. John." It was Mildred or Sarah or Anastasia or something. Off soapbox.)

1919: Marie Oganesoff, wife of the Russian Attache in Washington during WWI, died on July 11, from complications of a criminal abortion performed on July 5 by Dr. Julius Hammer, father of industrialist Armand Hammer. Hammer, a 1902 graduate of the College of Physicians and Surgeons, reported used instruments on her. She had been about one month pregnant. It's a twisted and sordid story and you can read the whole thing by clicking on Marie's name. At least she wasn't identified as "Mrs. Russian Attache."

1920: On July 11, 36-year-old Mrs. V. Romano died at Chicago's Columbus Hospital after an abortion. A midwife named Marie Lendino was arrested, and was indicted on July 15, but the case never went to trial. (Grits teeth again. Did Mrs. Romano's first name start with a V, or did her husband's?)

1975: Beverly Ann Moore, age 15, died July 11 after an abortion by Tuckey Hayes at Chattanooga Women's Clinic -- the "Lime 5" clinic. Hayes assured Beverly's parents that she would be "all right" just fifteen minutes before she died. Chattanooga Women's Clinic was written up for continued deficiencies even after Beverly's death. Click on Beverly's name for the whole litany of sloth.