Community Corner
Play Brings Grandmother's Legacy to Life
Carol O. Smart's one-woman play chronicles the life of her Native American grandmother, Dr. Rose Minoka-Hill, Thursday at Pauline Haass Public Library.
Actress/playwright Carol O. Smart still remembers seeing that heavy medical bag her grandmother, Dr. Rose Minoka-Hill (1876-1952), used to carry to the ramble shack homes where she practiced medicine on the Oneida Indian reservation. Smart brings her grandmother’s remarkable story to life in her one-woman show, “Honor Song!” at 7:30 p.m. Thursday in the Quad/Graphics Room at the Pauline Haass Public Library.
“She used to say her medicine for dealing with the great discrimination that she faced is to try to be the best person one can be,” said Smart. “She was half white and half Mohawk but her children were more Indian than she was, and with darker skin. So she saw a lot of pain inflicted on them.”
Smart appears in costume on a stage set complete with props from Dr. Minoka-Hill’s home and medical practice. She uses her grandmother's personal scrapbook to chronicle her entire life.
Find out what's happening in Sussexwith free, real-time updates from Patch.
“We felt this play is a perfect way to honor women throughout history by having one very interesting woman’s story come forward,” said Joanne Smith, Friends of the Library volunteer. “Carol Smart does a wonderful job of interpreting her grandmother’s life and words from the times in which she lived. This is the Friends’ one big event to help the library’s goal of providing lifelong learning.”
After practicing medicine in Pennsylvania for five years, Dr. Minoka-Hill married an Oneida Indian from Wisconsin and spent the rest of her life as a general practitioner on the Oneida Indian reservation. She was the first woman to receive honorary lifetime membership to the Wisconsin State Medical Society.
Find out what's happening in Sussexwith free, real-time updates from Patch.
“She became the health officer for Brown County, serving Indians as well as whites,” said Smart. “She was a typical country doctor and spent a lot of time delivering babies. Half the country lived on farms at that time so there were a lot of farming accidents, too.”
Everyone is invited to the program and no registration is required. For more information, call the Pauline Haas Public Library at (262) 246-5180. The library is located at N64 W23820 Main Street.
