Victoria’s Read

Mar 29, 1842-Apr11, 1913

Dr. Amelia Yeomans and her daughter Lillian were the first women physicians in Winnipeg. She was born in Montreal and married Dr. Augustus Yeomans at the age of eighteen.

When he died in 1878, Amelia decided to join her daughter Lillian at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor to pursue a career in medicine. At that time, medical schools were still closed to women in Canada. Lillian graduated in 1882 and obtained her Manitoba licence on September 22, 1882. Amelia obtained her M.D. degree in Michigan in 1883, and was registered in Manitoba on February 23, 1885.

Both Dr. Yeomans specialized in “Midwifery and the Diseases of Women and Children.” There was plenty of work for them in Winnipeg. During the 1880s Winnipeg was being transformed from a frontier town into a bustling metropolis. Many social ills followed this rapid growth. Dr. Amelia Yeomans could not sit and watch the misery that many women faced, especially immigrant women. In response, she visited the city’s slums, toured factories and prisons, treated the deprived and dispossessed and exposed the conditions to the rest of society.

Dr. Amelia Yeomans thought that giving women the right to vote was another way of curing social ills. This was a very unpopular cause at that time. Not only were most men totally opposed to granting women the right to vote but they were also convinced it would cause the disintegration of the family. Despite all her efforts, women did not get the vote in her lifetime and prohibition was not legislated until 1916. However, her efforts paved the way for both.

When she retired in 1906, Winnipeg was no longer the wicked city she encountered when she first moved here. When she died in 1913, over two hundred women had graduated from medical schools throughout Canada. The City of Winnipeg recognized her important role in our history by dedicating a plaque to her on the Broadway median at Hargrave Street.

Lillian Yeomans
June 23, 1861-Dec 9, 1942