Representative women of New England/Caroline Y. Wentworth
CAROLINE YOUNG WENTWORTH, M.D., Ch.B., of Newton Highlands, Mass., was born in South Berwick, Me., being the daughter of Benjamin F. and Mary Elizabeth (Young) Wentworth. Her maternal grandmother was a Quaker. On the paternal side her first ancestor in this country was Elder William AVentworth, who came to New England less than twenty years after the arrival of the Pilgrims on Plymouth Rock, and less than ten years after the arrival of John Winthrop and the settlement of Boston. In 1639 he was one of the signers of the "combination" for a government at Exeter, N.H. Some years later he settled in Dover, N.H., where he served as Ruling Elder of the church and for several years as Selectman. The long roll of his descendants includes many distinguished names, both in colonial and in later times.
The Wentworth family in England is traced back to a Saxon land-owner living in Strafford in the West Riding of Yorkshire in the eleventh century, and designated in the Domesday Book as Rynald or Reginald de Wynterwade.
Dr. Wentworth in her girlhood years attended the public schools of Wakefield, Mass., and subsequently took the course at the State Normal School in Framingham. After her graduation she taught m the public schools of Newton and in Arthur Oilman's Preparatory School in Cambridge. In 1895, after a four years' course of study at the Boston University School of Medicine, she received therefrom the degree of M.D., having previously taken (1894) the degree of Ch.B. (Bachelor of Surgery). She then spent a year as surgical interne in the Massachusetts Homœopathic Dispensary, and has held an. appointment on the surgical staff of that institution ever since. She is widely interested in philanthropic movements, and holds the office of visiting physician in a number of practical charitable institutions in Boston and Newton.
Shortly after her graduation Dr. Wentworth opened an office in Newton Highlands, where she has built up a large practice. She stands not only for skill and ability in her profession, but as an influence for good in the community.