Susan Anderson

Susan Anderson (January 31, 1870 – April 16, 1960) was an American physician and one of the first women to practice medicine in Colorado.

Biography Anderson was born in 1870 in Fort Wayne, Indiana, and later moved to Kansas. Her parents divorced when she was young, and she lived with her father, younger brother, and grandmother. After she graduated from high school in 1891, her family moved to Cripple Creek, Colorado after gold had been discovered there. Although she originally wanted to work as a telegraph operator, she was encouraged by her father to attend medical school at the University of Michigan. She was briefly engaged but was left at the altar by her fiancé in 1900. In 1904, she was appointed Coroner of Grand County, Colorado, during which time she investigated many of the deaths involved in the construction of the Moffat Tunnel railroad. She tended to a range of patients and medical conditions including childbirth, skiing injuries, and particularly pneumonia during the 1918 flu pandemic. Although most of her work involved making house calls to patients, Anderson never owned a horse or car, and she was usually paid in food or firewood rather than money.