The Icelandic Canadian - 01.03.1994, Page 22

132 THE ICELANDIC CANADIAN SPRING, 1994
Picture of the family with the woodpile they had to work so hard for.
(Not a tree in the pix, all prairie) Photo Courtesy: Dr. Stuart Houston
Medicine at the University of Mani-
toba, she was one of thirteen women.
She continued to teach school during
the summer months while she
attended medical college in order to
be able to continue to pay her
expenses. There were no holidays for
this very determined and dedicated
person.
In 1925, the year that Sigga
graduated, she was the fifth woman of
Icelandic descent in the world to
achieve a medical degree. The other
four were Steinunn Johannesdottir
(Steinunn Alice Hayes) Los Angeles
1902, Kristin Olafsdottir (Reykjavik
1917), Katrin Thoroddsen (1921), and
Solveig Thordarson Gislason (1922).
For a year, Sigga worked in a
tuberculosis sanatorium in Fort
Wayne, Indiana. After this year’s
absence, she agreed to join her per-
sistent suitor, Clarence J. Houston,
M.D. (Manitoba, 1926), in Grand
Forks, North Dakota. They were
married December 3, 1926 in Crook-
ston, Minnesota, after convincing the
court house clerk that the compulsory
waiting period should not apply to
Canadian citizens. “He saw no need to
protect a couple from another country
from rash and impetuous folly.” They
went on to practice medicine in
Watford City, North Dakota for 13
months. An opportunity to practice in
Saskatchewan came up, so they
packed their belongings and their
infant son and moved to Yorkton,
Saskatchewan.
For half a century, Sigga and
Clarence worked side by side in a
practice that served Yorkton and
surrounding district - he in surgery
and hospital visits and Sigga in
paediatrics and gynaecology. Patients
regularly came from hundreds of
miles away specifically to see Mrs.
Houston, the doctor, (Clarence had
the appellation Dr. Houston) for she
had gained a reputation for having
great success with infants who were
failing to thrive. Infants were sent to
her to be assessed and put on a
formula of her own devising. They
invariably thrived.
“There was nobody in that part of
Saskatchewan who was better with
children,” recalls Dr. H. Crossley...
“Children loved Sigga and she loved
her babies. ” 6
A large part of her effectiveness can
be credited directly to her personality.
“Shed lecture mothers and if they
balked... she was firm... (she would)
come right out and tell you what she
thought. Though physically a small