the opening lecture. . . . During the ensuing nine months, I averaged sixteen hours a day in attending lectures, in hard study, and in all exercises required in the courses, after which I put in ten hours a day (except Sundays) in study during vacation.
Her daily schedule was filled with lectures, clinics, laboratory work, and examinations. Bethenia was so engrossed in her studies that she did not hear the bell ring between classes. She never tired of the learning process and she never suffered with a day of sickness.
In June of 1880, Doctor Owens received her second degree. After graduation she traveled with one of her classmates to do field work in hospitals and clinics in Chicago. In the fall of that same year, she returned to the University of Michigan, accompanied by her son. Together, the mother and son doctors attended advanced lectures in obstetrics and homeopathic remedies. Six months after their arrival, they embarked on a trip abroad. Their European tour included visits to Hamburg, Munich, Paris, and England. It was a welcome change of pace for Bethenia, who by then had been continually working and studying for more than thirty years.
Doctor Owens settled in San Francisco after her journey across the sea, and it was there she met her second husband. Before she met Colonel John Adair, Bethenia maintained that she was fully committed to her profession and not interested in marriage. A brief courtship with the handsome Civil War veteran changed her mind. The two were married on July 24, 1884, in Portland, Oregon. Three years after the wedding, the Adairs were expecting their first child. Bethenia boasted in her journal that she was happier than she had ever been before. Her elation would not last long:
At the age of forty-seven I gave birth to a little daughter; and now my joy knew no limit, my cup of bliss was full to overflowing. A son I had, and a daughter was what I most desired. . . . For three days only, was she left with us, and then my treasure was taken from me, to join in the immortal hosts beyond all earthly pain and sorrow.
Bethenia found solace from the grief of her daughter’s death in caring for the sick in her Portland practice. No matter what the weather conditions were, and knowing that there was no other doctor within a 200-mile radius, she never refused a call from a patient. She attended to all those in need, at times traveling through dense undergrowth and swollen rivers.
THREE YEARS AFTER BETHENIA OWENS-ADAIR PUBLISHED “HUMAN STERILIZATION: ITS SOCIAL AND LEGISLATIVE ASPECTS,” OREGON PASSED ITS STERILIZATION BILL.
Never content with being solely a physician, Bethenia became a student again in 1889 and enrolled in a Chicago medical school, seeking a post-graduate degree. After she completed her studies, she returned home to her husband and the teenage son they had adopted. Her practice continued to grow, and before long she found she could not keep up with her professional work and maintain a home for her family. She chose the practice over her marriage and sent John away to a farm they owned in Astoria. The Adairs’ marriage ended in 1903.
At the age of sixty-five, Bethenia retired from her practice. Her focus then shifted from day-to-day medical treatment to research. She studied such controversial topics as the sterilization of the criminally insane. Bethenia’s analysis led her to believe that insanity and criminal action were hereditary. Her famous work on the subject, entitled “Human Sterilization: Its Social and Legislative Aspects,” was published in 1922, and brought her instant recognition in the field. Three years after Adair presented her findings, a sterilization statute was adopted as state law in Oregon.
In addition to her medical research, Bethenia worked hard as a lobbyist for the Women’s Christian Temperance Union. She remained a staunch social and political activist until 1926, when she died of natural causes at the age of