EDITORIAL: Yeah, I’m thankful

By LORNA CHEROT LITTLEWAY

HILLSDALE—Hillsdale resident Dr. Irma Waldo is in her 99^th year, though she barely looks a day over 65. At age 25 she became a medical doctor and practiced in Hillsdale for 70 years specializing in pediatrics. With her daughter Wendy’s encouragement, Irma used the Covid lockdown period to pen her memoir, The Doctor Wore High Heels.

The venture was a family affair, with daughter, granddaughters and a great granddaughter helping by compiling articles, clippings and photos, as well as designing the cover. The book was published and released in time for Irma to sell 70 copies at the Hillsdale Art Walk on August 12.

I had the great pleasure to interview Dr. Waldo at her home and was gifted a copy of her book. She is a charming woman, short, with large curious and sometimes mischievous eyes. Her silver hair was beautifully coiffed. She wore a pink and tan ensemble of floral-patterned blouse, jacket with a golden brooch, slacks and sensible shoes.

One of my first questions to Dr. Waldo was, “Why Hillsdale?” She confessed to wanting to practice medicine in a rural community and the “rolling hills” of Hillsdale won her heart.

Irma Mazzarella, the oldest of three children, was born in 1925 in Bronxville, N.Y. Her mother, also named Irma, was a reading teacher and embraced the concept of phonics. In the book Dr. Waldo states that by the end of 1^st grade, her mother’s students could read at a 3^rd grade level.

Recalling her childhood, Dr. Waldo said that her sister and brother were raised by “the 10 Commandments, the Golden Rule of ‘do unto others as you would do unto you’” and with a “you can do this” attitude.

Chapter 1 offers a Golden Rule story about how her mother resolved a dispute over ice cream among her three children. It was during the Depression and spending money on sweets was a rare treat.

Mother Irma scooped equal amounts of ice cream into three bowls. However the children were certain that one of the bowls had more ice cream and they squabbled over who would get that bowl. To the children’s dismay their mother dumped all the bowls of ice cream into the sink. Lesson learned: “ . . . if there was a bigger portion, give to the other. Don’t claim it for yourself.”

In Chapter 2 the author writes that soon to graduate from A. B. Davis High School in Mount Vernon, Irma thought she might pursue studies in nursing. She explained to the dean that she wanted to help people. The dean challenged, “Then why do you not become a doctor?” The dean argued that Irma was in the top 10% of her class and there would be opportunity for women because men were being drafted into the military for WW2.

Not convinced, the young Irma consulted with an uncle, who was a doctor. He told her that nursing would be a more “appropriate” profession because she would marry, have babies and drop out. Irma’s can do attitude kicked in.

She told me that in response to her uncle’s advice she thought, “That’s what you think.” She added, “I thought [that] being a mother I can pass on information to my patients.” She applied to NYU’s pre-med program and was accepted in January 1943.

There was a shortage of U.S. doctors. Medical studies and internships, which normally took eight years to complete, were condensed into five. Irma Mazzarella graduated from college at age 20. She enrolled in the University of Buffalo Medical School, where there were 10 women out of 80 medical and 50 dental students.

In her book Irma writes that the male medical students were dismissive of the women, believing that they did not have the stamina to endure 60-80 hour work weeks and longer internship hours. Again her can do attitude kicked in. Irma ranked at the top of her class in each of the four years of medical study.

She told me that the 18-month rotating internship/residency at Erie County Community Hospital in medicine, pediatrics, obstetrics and especially surgery was invaluable. She writes, “I knew I would get a very broad experience there for this was where . . . impoverished patients . . . were cared for. . . . I also knew that interns were given great responsibility . . . The wisdom of this decision blessed me over and over . . . and bonded me to caring for underprivileged patients forever.”

At age 25 Irma Mazzarella was a doctor. One prophecy of her uncle’s did come true. She was also a wife. She married John Waldo, a dental student at UBMS, in her fourth year of medical studies.

But she did not drop out. They moved to Hillsdale, in 1950, when she joined the Rip Van Winkle Clinic. She recalled that she was the first woman doctor in Hillsdale. “Now 40% of U.S. doctors are women,” she told me with a chuckle.

The Rip Van Winkle Foundation established clinics in Hillsdale, Philmont, Chatham, Germantown, Canaan and Hudson. Irma, now the mother of a 9-month old baby boy, was hired as a pediatrician, part-time, (in pay not hours) at the Hillsdale clinic while her husband practiced dentistry in Philmont.

Irma was employed part-time until her four children were school age. Often patient visits did not start until evening, when all her children were bedded down for the night.

She writes, “Imbedded deeply were the words of the male medical students that I would not practice medicine. I vowed,

. . . ‘I will raise my children myself, and I will practice medicine.’ . . . I believed that little ones should be in their own home with their mother or their nana.”

Chapter 5 includes an example of Dr. Waldo’s generosity toward her patients. She was advised that the monthly billing system was burdensome to staff and not particularly fruitful.

At the end of December all patients with outstanding balances received a note with their Christmas cards, “To relieve the billing workload . . . and the burden you must feel . . . carrying this debt, I am wiping the slate clean. . . . pay whatever you can and it will be considered paid in full.”

“How touching . . . the response! Some paid . . . in full, others

. . . in part; still others paid with garden vegetables and fruits or with outgrown baby clothes to be passed on.”

One of Dr. Waldo’s duties at the Hillsdale Clinic was to be on call alternating weekends. Prompted by the many tourist-skiers she treated for various fractures and broken bones, Dr. Waldo took ski lessons and became proficient enough to volunteer with the Catamount Ski Patrol.

In the early 1970s Dr. Waldo responded to a request from a NYC doctor that would change the trajectory of her work. The doctor had a 3-year-old patient who was dying from a brain tumor. The young girl wanted to spend her remaining time in the country with her puppy. The doctor asked if Dr. Waldo would care for the child; if not he would decline the family’s request.

She said yes.

The experience was so heartwarming and demonstrative of a need for families who wanted dying loved ones to be at home that, in 1976, Dr. Waldo co-founded Roe Jan Hospice with Yvonne DelGrande, who was her nurse. Roe Jan Hospice evolved into Columbia County Hospice over 18 years . It is believed that Roe Jan hospice was the first such service established in the Northeast. The hospice care was an all-volunteer service with no charge to the patient and family.

At the end of our interview I asked Dr. Waldo how she would fix our current healthcare system. At first she seemed befuddled by the scope of my question. Then her daughter Wendy prodded her mother that “personableness is gone.”

Dr. Waldo concurred and stressed the importance of getting full family health information. She added, “I don’t see how a doctor can do a physical without seeing the patient’s body. Patients need to remove their clothes for the entire body to be examined.”

She chuckled and told me that school students, especially boys, were surprised by the extensiveness of her exams. “I’d check their testicles [that they had dropped] and for hernias.”

I, also, asked Dr. Waldo what she would say to parents concerned about vaccinating their children. The “virus is very weak. [It] won’t hurt you. [It] will create antibodies.” Dr. Waldo believes in administering the full rage of vaccines: MMRDT – mumps, measles, rubella, diphtheria and tetanus- also, small pox.

Our interview ended with Dr. Waldo joking, “I’ve outlived my colleagues and can’t find a doctor.”

Dr. Waldo will be at the Roe Jan Library for a book signing on Wednesday, Sept. 20, 5:30pm. Copies of The Doctor Wore High Heels are $10.