Representative women of New England/Alice M. Steeves

by Mary H. Graves

ALICE M. STEEVES

ALICE MARY STEEVES, D.D.S., was born September 13, 1869, in Upper Coverdale, in the county of Albert, Province of New Brunswick, Canada. Her parents, William Whitfield and Almyra Ann (Wallace) Sleeves, are still living at the homestead. The Sleeves family of New Brunswick is of Pennsylvania Dutch extraction, the original form of the name having been Stief. In May, 1763, as stated in a book of New Brunswick biographies, Hendrick' Sleeves with his wife Rachel and seven sons — Jacob, John, Christian, Frederic, Ludwig (or Lewis), Henry, and Matthias — came from Pennsylvania to New Brunswick, and was one of the pioneer settlers of Albert County.

Dr. Steeves's paternal grandparents were Abel and Leah (Sleeves) Sleeves, and her great-grandfathers on that side were Hendrick, Jr. (or Henry), and his brother, Ludwig (or Lewis) Sleeves, sons of Hendrick' Steeves.

On her mother's side Dr. Steeves is partly of Scottish blood, her grandparents being John and Sarah (Chapman) Wallace, both native residents of Albert County, New Brunswick. Her grandfather Wallace, was a large land-owner. He gave each of his three sons a farm. Her grandmother's mother, whose maiden name was Sarah Black, belonged to that branch of the Black family in America whose home for many years was on the site of the present city of Halifax, where some of their dc^scendants still live.

Robert Black and William Chapman, ancestors of Dr. Steeves, were granted large tracts of land in New Brunswick and Nova Scotia for services to the British crown, and were among the pioneers of the new country, formerly Acadie.

Alice M. Steeves was the eldest daughter in a family of twelve children. She received her education in the common schools and high school; and by her two aunts, Mrs. Morton and Mrs. Vaughan, her mother's sisters, was so well trained in the domestic arts of housekeeping and needlework that at the age of fourteen she managed the affairs of the family for her mother, whose health at this time was not good.

The greatest character-forming factor in her early training was her association with her uncle, Judge Finemore Morton, who carefully drilled her in practical affairs of life, and who tried to have her study law with him. The law being considered by Mrs. Morton, her aunt, a very unwomanly profession, its study had to be given up. Early in 1889, having decided to become a nurse, she came to Boston and entered for a two years' course of study the Training School for Nurses connected with the Massachusetts General Hospital. Capable, efficient, and mature beyond her years, she gained the respect and good will of all with whom .she associated, and at the end of eighteen months was promoted to a head nurseship She was graduated in February, 1891, and in the autumn of that year she resigned her position to take a similar one in the Garfield Memorial Hospital in Washington, D.C., where she remained only a short time, when she resigned to do private work in that city. In October, 1892, she was appointed resident nurse at Talcott Hall, Oberlin College, Oberlin, Ohio, and while there did special work on the classics. Resigning in 1893, she went to Chicago to attend the World's Fair and to conduct special work in that city. In October, 1894, after many unsuccessful attempts to be admitted to the Northwestern University Dental School on an equal footing with men, she matriculated at the American College of Dental Surgery in Chicago, which in 1895 became amalgamated with the North-western University Dental School. From that institution, which had thrice refused her admittance, she was graduated in 1897, in a class of one hundred and twenty-six, with highest honors. One of the professors speaking of her at this time said, "She carries with her the confidence of the faculty, the highest esteem of her fellow-students, and possesses strong elements of character that will win success in any calling."

In 1898 she was appointed assistant to the chair of oral surgery in the Northwestern University Dental School, being the first woman to serve on its faculty She was also appointed clinical instructor in stomatology in the Woman's Medical College of Northwestern University in the same year, while also pursuing the practice of dentistry.

Through special work ilone in the interest of a broader medical edvication for dental practice Dr. Steeves became a member of the American Medical Association, and has made a good record in this society. She is also an active member in the Chicago Dental Society, Massachusetts Dental Society, and of her various alumni associations.

Although perhaps all that fortune could give in so short a time had fallen to our heroine's lot in the busy city of Chicago, she longed for the more sedate and settled atmosphere of New England. She therefore passed the Board of Dental Examiners of Massachusetts in March, 1902, and removed her office from Chicago to Commonwealth Avenue, Boston, on the first of May following. She was appointed consulting dentist to Trinity Dispensary, June, 1902, and attending dentist to the Academy of the Assumption, of Wellesley, Mass., in October, 1902. She is also dentist to the Homœopathic Dispensary, Boston, and has recently been appointed attending dentist to the Industrial School for Girls at Lancaster, Mass. She is much interested in securing proper oral conditions in children of the public schools. Dr. Steeves is a strong advocate of co-education, believing that women should have the same opportunities for mental training and for development of character and capacity from childhood up as men. And with her it is once a student, always a student: it never enters her mind to be satisfied with present attainments, to forego an opportunity for original research.