Mary Martin Sloop, M.D.: Unstoppable Children’s Crusader

By Linda Harris Sittig

Mary Martin Sloop’s impressive career had a rocky start.

Her Early Life

Born in Davidson, North Carolina, in 1873, Mary had the good fortune that her father believed in education for women, perhaps because he was a professor at Davidson College.

After having finished her public schooling in town, Mary soon turned fifteen. Her mother intended for Mary to attend a finishing school and thus prepare for the life of a social lady.

But her father overruled, and Mary set off for Statesville Female College for Women (now Mitchell Community College).

When she graduated three years later, she found her mother had become a total invalid. Mary did not hesitate but gave up any immediate plans for her secret dream – becoming a medical missionary. She remained at home instead for the next 12 years taking care of her mother and taking some pre-med classes at Davidson College. A tutor came to the house to teach her.

Mary’s Quest to Become a Doctor

Mary promptly enrolled in the North Carolina Medical College when her mother passed. The first two years would be spent at Davidson, and the remaining two years would be at Charlotte, North Carolina.

However, after her first year at Davidson, a major problem occurred. Women students were not allowed to participate in anatomy classes. It was deemed improper for a young woman to gaze upon the cadavers (dead bodies).

Without the anatomy course, Mary could not receive a medical diploma.

She began searching for women’s medical colleges in other states.

At this same time, she met a handsome student, Eustace Sloop, also studying to become a doctor. However, he was three years along in his studies, and Mary had applied to transfer to the Woman’s Medical College of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia.

While in Philadelphia, Eustace and Mary corresponded weekly, and he came up to Pennsylvania to visit her on several occasions.

When she graduated after her internship at the New England Hospital for Women and Children in Boston, she accepted her first real job as a doctor. She became the first female physician at Agnes Scott College in Georgia.

By this time, Eustace Sloop had established a practice in rural western Carolina in Plumtree’s tiny hamlet. Their engagement quickly turned into plans for marriage, and on July 2, 1908, Eustace and Mary married.

Coming to the Mountains of western North Carolina

Although she now realized that she would not become an overseas medical missionary, Mary decided that her talents would be needed just as much in the rural highlands of southern Appalachia.

How right she was.

However, additional obstacles occurred once more.

Because Eustace and Mary were not from the mountains, they were considered outlanders. (Yes, that was an actual saying back then). And because they were outlanders, the locals did not trust their medical advice.

Then, one night a young man was brought to their house with a ruptured appendix. Mary and Eustace rigged up equipment to sterilize their surgical supplies with no hospital or electric lights. They lit kerosene lanterns and placed the patient on a sturdy board. The operation took longer than they had hoped, and they fervently prayed that the man would survive.

He did, and with his recovery, the Sloops gained the villagers’ trust.

The need for a doctor in the Linville Valley of western North Carolina grew more urgent each year. Mary and Eustace found themselves riding hours up in the hollows to treat patients. Finally, they decided to move east to Crossnore, where their practice would be more centralized.

Moving to Crossnore, North Carolina

They established their Crossnore practice in December 1911 and stayed for the next forty-eight years.

Life as a pioneer doctor changed once again when Mary realized that in addition to sorely needed medical care, the children of the mountains were in critical need of a stable education.

So, she decided to build a school.

In 1913 Mary wrote to the State Education Department at Raleigh to learn how to receive funding to build a school.

The first hurdle required having a certain number of pupils who would all attend for a requisite number of months.

Back then, mountain children only went for four months of the year; the rest of the time, they were needed at home for planting, tending, and harvesting food. Then there was also the problem of how many children walked several miles to get to Crossnore, and in bad weather, they would stay home.

At first, Mary set her eyes on the old Sunday School room. She envisioned it as a full-time school with pupils attending Monday through Friday.

Even with some funding toward supplies, Raleigh could not supply workers. Undaunted, Mary found a local boy who attended carpentry school at Berea College and hired him to organize the menfolk to construct a school building.

Trees were cut down from the forests, dragged to a local sawmill, and made into lumber. Then the townspeople had to be convinced that a good school would benefit everyone.

It took a while to get everything functioning correctly, but the school grew in size, and three rooms with three teachers were soon needed to accommodate all the children who came.

And those early years weren’t easy ones. Mary continued to help Eustace with his practice, functioning as the additional doctor. She oversaw the school’s day-to-day operations and gave birth to their two children.

She battled problems with moonshiners, families who wanted their girls to quit school young so they could get married, and winters that were so frigid the children had to wear their coats and gloves all day inside the classrooms.

But through it all, Mary Martin Sloop persevered.

Together, Mary and Eustace managed to open a local hospital and increased the original one-class schoolroom into a schoolhouse complex of twenty buildings on over 250 acres. In 1924, the #DaughtersoftheAmericanRevolution stepped in and pledged their support to help provide an education of nine months, culminating in an eleventh-grade education. The D.A.R. still lends support to modern-day Crossnore School.

Mary continued her role in the school until 1959. She died three years later at the age of ninety – living only one year longer than Eustace.

Both her children were educated. Her daughter became a doctor, and her son became a dentist. And both of them returned to Crossnore to take up the reins and carry on Mary’s legacy.

Strong Women cause ripples across generations.

Thank you to blog follower Tina Dunn who sent me Mary’s story. If you would like to read Mary’s full memoir, read Miracle in the Hills, c. 1953.

Please sign up on the right sidebar to become a follower of Strong Women, and in the meantime, you can find my books Cut From Strong Cloth, Last Curtain Call, Counting Crows, and B-52 DOWN! in local bookstores and online.

I hope to see my newest book, Opening Closed Doors, a story about the desegregation of Virginia’s public libraries, debut in late spring.

I am wishing you a healthy, happy, and prosperous new year in 2022.

~ Linda