The newly married Flora (Southard) Aldrich (1859-1921) arrived in Anoka in 1884 as the 21-year-old bride of 28-year-old Dr. Alanson Aldrich, seemingly to all the world an educated woman from a privileged and proper East Coast family. It didn’t take long for the community to understand Flora’s ambitions for herself outside the traditional role of women at the time — working alongside her husband in his medical practice, as his equal in a partnership of service to the community. Alanson not only allowed it, but encouraged her to achieve a medical education at the University of Minnesota, where she graduated in 1887.
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