Woman of the Century/Ida Hall Roby

ROBY, Mrs. Ida Hall, pharmacist, born in Fairport, N. Y., 8th March, 1857. Her parents removed to Michigan when she was a child, and she was educated mainly in that State. Her father was a noted educator, a man of brilliant intellect and sterling character. He was a professor in the high school in Battle Creek, Mich., and served as superintendent of schools in Kalamazoo county, in the same State. He died one year before his daughter, Ida, was graduated from the Illinois College of Pharmacy, a department in the Northwestern University, in Evanston, Ill. She was thus thrown upon her own resources at an early age. and, having a natural fondness for chemistry, which was intensified by study and work in a drug house for several years, she started a pharmacy in Chicago. She attended the college on alternate days, and is the first woman to graduate from the pharmaceutical department of that institution. She is by natural instinct a chemist, and she has won a unique reputation as a successful woman in a line of business generally left to men to handle. Her model pharmacy on Forest avenue, in Chicago, is one of the features of that great city.