MRS. MAYME ELLIOTT BARRY
Bio-Sawyers
SURNAMES: ELLIOTT, STARR
A proficient and popular official, whose fidelity to duty, together
with a charming personality, has appealed to all hav-ing occasion to
invoke her services, is Mrs. Mayme Elliott Barry, superintendent of the
Palo Alto Hos-pital, where she is also house anaesthetist-a woman of
remarkable natural ability and wide, valuable experience, intensely
interested in her arduous work. She was born at Payette, Idaho, the
daughter of Thomas Elliott, an Idaho pioneer mining man, now deceased,
but once well known to the Inland Empire, the Pacific Coast and the
Pacific Northwest; and she was educated at Whitman College, in
Washington. She took her first training in nursing at the General
Hospital, at Walla Walla, Wash., and then went to Chicago and there
pursued post-graduate work in hos-pital management and anaesthesia at
the Columbia and the Chicago Post Graduate hospitals.
Returning to Washington, she took charge of the Walla Walla General
Hospital as superintendent and house anaesthetist, but on resigning
from that posi-tion, she continued courses in anaesthesia at Cleve-land
and in New York City. Then she came to California and became identified
with the
Peninsular
Hospital at Palo Alto-now known as the Palo Alto Hospital-and she
remained there as superintendent until 1917, when she resigned her
position and established herself at Palo Alto in private practice as an
anaesthe-tist. In July, 1918, however, she was appointed by the U. S.
Surgeon-General as anaesthetist-at-large with the American forces
abroad, and she went immediately to Meres Center, in France, four hours
by train from Paris, where she had charge of all the anaesthetists in
that hospital. She did not return with her base to the United States,
as the value of her professional services had now become recognized and
a continuation of her services was demanded. She was next sent to
Dijon, France, where she became chief anaesthetist, and served until
July, 1919, when the American Hospital at Dijon was transferred to the
United States. Immediately thereafter, in re-sponse to telegrams from
Coblenz, Mrs. Barry was sent to the Evacuation Hospital No. 27, in
Germany, and she became anaesthetist there, as it was desired to have
one who could administer nitrous-oxide as an expert. When a base
hospital was formed at Coblenz, some Americans returning to the United
States and other Americans taking their places, she remained and became
chief anaesthetist, but in March, 1920, on account of illness in her
family, she returned to California and Palo Alto, and immediately
resumed her work as superintendent and chief anaesthetist at the Palo
Alto Hospital.
This, the Peninsular Hospital, was taken over by Stanford University,
which operated it in cooperation with the Palo Alto city government. On
July 1, 1921, the hospital was sold to the city of Palo Alto, and the
city in turn leased it to Stanford University, on a twenty-year lease,
with Dr. George Somers as superintendent. Now its status is such among
hospitals of the state that her present responsible post may well be
regarded as the fitting climax in Mrs. Barry's career.
Her father, Thomas Elliott, was a native of Decatur, and when the gold
excitement broke out, he was attending boarding school in his home
town. He ran away, and crossed the great plains while making his way as
the driver of a freight team; and he reached California late in 1849.
In time he became identified with early mining interests, as well as
politics, in Idaho, and it was he who discovered and developed the
celebrated Sub-Rosa gold mine in the Boise, Idaho, Basin. He brought
all the mining machinery across the plans from the East, and made and
lost three fortunes.
While at Boise, he was married to Miss Jane Margaret Starr, a
native of Iowa, and an accomplished young lady several years his
junior, who had herself crossed the plains to Ogden, Utah, and then
moved on to Idaho. Now, at the ripe age of sixty, she resides in
comfort at Baker, Ore., the wife of Charles W. Durkee, who developed
the celebrated Durkee Mines at Baker city. Three sons in the family of
Mr. and Mrs. Elliott are still living: Jess H. Elliott is interested in
mines at Baker; and Paul T. Elliott, who was in the service of his
country abroad during the war, resides near Hoplands, Cal., where he is
following agricultural pursuits. Norman A. Elliott, also abroad in the
defense of his country, is a graduate of the University of California
and will continue the study of medicine.