Can a bitter sheriff and an independent doctor overcome societies stigma's?
Donald Murray had moved to this godforsaken town as a much younger man. The promise of gold, shimmering with hope and prosperity, all he’s found is dirt and dust—to say nothing of the loss of his wife and burden of raising two children alone. Now the gold rush, well and truly over, the camp had boomed into a burgeoning town. Between running the general store, raising his children, and volunteering as sheriff, he keeps grief at bay with distraction of a bitterness stretching back generations, refusing any kind of solace.
Elizabeth Smith has been distancing herself from her origins for twenty six years. The illegitimate daughter of an Earl and a courtesan, her life has been a tumultuous happenstance of semi privilege and debauched life skills. Through said privilege she attended university and obtained her medical doctorate, one of the few of her gender to do so. Finally she can shake free of the last vestiges of her past and begin anew with a natural impatience. Find purpose and solace. A place where no one knows who she is… or what she is. Where she might treat the sick and ease suffering. Was that such a terrible dream? No she yelled back, shaking her fist with rightful indignation. Elizabeth refuses to back down.
Nevertheless, according to the town of Ridgewood, deep in the North Dakota outskirts, a lone woman with an English accent, proclaiming to be a doctor is more akin to a nightmare than a dream. Only when an outbreak of smallpox flares the town into near panic does anyone take her seriously in this post annexation gold mining camp turned rambling town. And while fighting the deadly contagion, the stigma of her gender, profession and origins she is fighting for the heart of a man who believes himself incapable to love again.
A novella contribution to Suffragette Uprising.
My story is not focused on the rights of women’s right to vote as per our typical understanding of 'suffragette'. This story will focus on other women’s rights, the right to practice medicine, obtain education, rise above their circumstances. And of course to never settle for a love for anything less then is deserved.
