Dr. Martha Isabel “Mattibelle” Boger Shattuck was born in West Virginia. She seems to have been a woman ahead of her time. She graduated from Marietta College in 1908 when there were no sororities there.
Dr. Martha Isabel “Mattibelle” Boger Shattuck
During the summer of 1913, she was enrolled in the University of Michigan Homeopathic School. In 1915, she graduated from Boston University Medical School. While at Boston University, she became a member of the Alpha Chapter of Delta Delta Delta.
From the Trident of Delta Delta Delta
Florence Rachel Belyea was also a member of the Alpha Chapter of Tri Delta
After graduation she returned to Parkersburg to work in association with her father, who was also a doctor. She returned to Massachusetts to work at the Talitha Cumi Hospital.
On May 24, 1921, she married Lieutenant Gerald A. Shattuck. The Journal of the American Institute of Homeopathy, Volume XIV, 1921-22, noted:
Announcement is made of the marriage of Dr Martha Isabel Boger Portsmouth to Lieutenant Gerald A Shattuck of the Supply Corps of the United States Navy Dr Boger will continue practice at 145 Middle Street Portsmouth continuing her former name professionally.
From the Trident of Delta Delta Delta
Dr. Boger-Shattuck was the first female doctor in Portsmouth, New Hampshire and she kept up her practice as the mother of two young children. A son was born in 1923 and a daughter in 1927. In 1929, she helped established the Ranger Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution.
The 1930 census has the family living in Washington, D.C., but perhaps it was a temporary assignment.
In 1940, she was Chairman of Portsmouth Finnish Relief Fund. Dr. Boger-Shattuck and daughter Nancy were visiting Hawaii in 1941 as her husband was stationed there. On December 7, 1941, she put her medical training to use and was in charge of admission of Ward 3; 287 causalities came in after the bombing. In a newspaper account, she recounted that on the night of December 7, as they had evacuated to the hills, she, her daughter, and another woman and her daughter, made sterilized bandages. For 10 days, they made 1,000 bandages, and all the bandages were put to use in Ward 3.
As a volunteer, she took charge of vaccines for typhoid and tetanus of the junior high school and high schoolers. She worked with the Japanese children in Waipahu, giving physical exams and gaining the moniker, the “Peek and Poke Lady.” When she and her daughter returned to New Hampshire in May, 1942, they took with them a large monkey pod hors d’oeuvres tray with the inscription “Given to Dr. Boger-Shattuck from the school children of Waipahu. Aloha.”
It appears she worked until almost to the time of her death in 1959. There is an ad in a 1957 Portsmouth newspaper announcing that her office would be closed for a week. She is buried in Arlington National Cemetery, alongside her husband.
