Woman of the Century/Katherine Kurt

KURT, Miss Katherine, homeopathic physician, born in Wooster, Wayne county, Ohio, 19th December, 1852. She is the eighth of a family of twelve children, and the first born on American soil. Her father and mother were natives of Switzerland. The father was a weaver and found it hard to keep so large a family. Upon the death of the mother, when Katherine was eight years of age, all the children but one or two of the older ones were placed in the homes of friends The father was opposed to having any of the children legally adopted by his friends, but he placed Katherine in a family where, for a number of years, she had a home, with the privilege of attending school a few months in each year, and there was laid the foundation of the structure which, as she grew older, developed her native strength of mind. She performed the duties of her station, treading unmurmuringly the appointed way of life. When about nineteen years old, she began to teach in the public schools of her native county, and she saved enough to allow her to enter an academy, that she might better prepare herself for teaching, which, at that time, was tier only aim. While in the academy in Lodi, Ohio, the idea of being a physician was first suggested to her, and from that time on she worked, studying and teaching, with a definite aim in view. In the spring of 1877 she entered Buchtel College, Akron, Ohio, as a special student. There she remained about three years, working her own way, the third year being an assistant teacher in the preparatory department. During the latter part of her course in Buchtel College, she also began the study of medicine under the preceptorship of a physician KATHERINE KURT. in Akron, and in the fall of 1880 she entered the Hahnemann Medical College of Chicago, from which institution she was graduated on 23rd February, 1882, rank, d among the first of a class of one-hundred-one members, having spent one term as assistant in the Chicago Surgical Institute. She then went to Akron, Ohio, and opened an office in June, 1882. In less than ten years she has secured an established, lucrative practice, has freed herself from all debts and has some paying investments. In religion Dr. Kurt is a Universalist. She is active in church work and for a number of years has been a faithful and earnest teacher in Sunday-school. Her work has been on the side of philanthropic and reformatory movements. She is an advocate for the higher education of woman and a firm believer in suffrage for woman. Politically she sympathizes with the Prohibition party. For several years she has been the State superintendent of heredity in the Ohio Woman's Christian Temperance Union.