On February 8, 1881, the Elliott family, living at Graven’s Cottage in Tottenham, London, England, welcomed a baby girl—Mabel Evelyn Elliott, the tenth child to be born in the family that would eventually number fourteen children. She is truly one of the most fascinating women I have ever encountered. The family came to West Palm Beach in its pre-natal days, in 1894, when it wasn’t even an incorporated town. That would come November 5, 1894, when Mabel’s father, Joseph Elliott, chaired the committee that made the town official.
My journey with her started last May, and it is still ongoing, about 60% through writing her biography. Her work as a physician in the Near East (Turkey, Armenia, and Greece) made her world-famous in 1920-1923. If that wasn’t enough, she continued her service overseas in Japan, where she spent sixteen years modernizing pediatrics in Tokyo as a medical missionary. We still have people who dedicate their careers to the service of others. But we do not respect or revere these people as people did at that time 100 years ago. Maybe that can change.