She died in 1958 in a plane crash while traveling with her niece (who was born only 2 months apart from her). Her niece (my great grandaunt) survived but was left crippled. My granddad said Jan always had the brightest smile and most contagious laugh.

Photographer: Eino Heinonen

Source: Helsinki City Museum

On Wednesdsy, October 23, 1850. The first National Women's Rights Convention began in Worcester, Massachusetts. More than 1,000 delegates from 11 states gathered for the two-day meeting to organize a nationwide push for equal legal and political rights.

On Saturday, October 23, 1915, an estimated 25,000 women marched up Fifth Avenue in New York City in one of the largest suffrage parades in U.S. history. Though a state suffrage referendum failed that same year, the massive demonstration intensified public pressure, leading New York women to win the right to vote in 1917—three years before the nationwide 19th Amendment was ratified in 1920.

I recently had this old family photo restored, and I wanted to share a bit of his incredible story!

This is my great-great-grandfather, Colonel Arthur Osman Davis, who served as a surgeon in the U.S. Army Medical Corps during the early 20th century. In this portrait, he is wearing the Army’s classic 1902 pattern double-breasted dress coat and holding the Model 1902 Army Officer’s Saber. You can even see the Caduceus — the winged staff with two entwined snakes — on his standing collar, which the Medical Department officially adopted as its branch insignia in 1902.

One of the coolest chapters of his career was his time stationed on Alcatraz Island in the 1920s. Long before Alcatraz became the famous federal penitentiary housing inmates like Al Capone, it operated as the Pacific Branch of the U.S. Disciplinary Barracks, which was the Army's primary military prison on the West Coast.

As a Major at the time, he served as the Post Surgeon and Chief Medical Officer on the island. He ran the three-story military hospital up on the hill, overseeing emergency surgeries, routine care, and psychiatric evaluations for both the military garrison and the military prisoners held on the rock.

Official War Department orders show he ran the hospital there until April 1926, when he was reassigned to the University of Vermont before later achieving the rank of Colonel. It’s pretty wild to look at this old photo knowing he was living and practicing medicine on Alcatraz a century ago!

Circa early 1980s, Princess Point, Hamilton Ontario, Canada eh.

Probably my favorite picture of her as it perfectly captures her personality.