Helen Damon Paschall Proctor, M.D.

Not many people realize that the neighborhood adjoining Mount Moriah Cemetery in Southwest Philadelphia was one of the first real estate transactions William Penn made after he received his charter for Pennsylvania. 

The now-famous Quaker sold 500 acres between Cobbs Creek and the Schuylkill River to Thomas Paschall in early 1682. He was a pewterer of substantial means, bringing over his family and servants that summer, clearing land and building houses.

From that beginning came the neighborhood known as Paschallville, later shortened by one letter to Paschalville. It is now part of the Elmwood Park section of the city. A few reminders of its former existence remain, including Paschall Avenue, Paschall Playground, and the Paschalville Library. It was 170 years after the family first settled there that two men bought 155 acres beside Cobbs Creek. Their vision was to build a park-like burial ground called Mount Moriah Cemetery.

A Notable Lineage

Helen is a descendant of both the Paschall family and one of those entrepreneurs. Her father was Robert Paschall, who has his own Notable story. He was a 1st lieutenant in the Civil War who, in 1870, married Emily Connell, a daughter of the co-founder of Mount Moriah, George Connell. 

Emily had four children, with Helen being the first. Her joy was tempered a month later when her father died, resulting in the Paschalls living with Emily’s mother for 30 years at 60th and Kingsessing Avenue. Robert was a real estate assessor for the city before entering the brick business. And, like the Connells, they were all baptized and active members at St. James Kingsessing, an Episcopal Church in the 6800 block between Woodland and Paschall Avenues.

The Rush of Romance

As teenage girls are inclined to do, Helen found a boyfriend. William Merryman Proctor was 19 years old when he became her husband on February 23, 1887. She, however, was only 15 at the time, which was under the legal age in Pennsylvania. That’s why they took a ferry ride to Camden, New Jersey to get married, because that state didn’t require a license before getting married. 

Thousands of couples did that until a law was passed in 1897. One of many ministers who had a prosperous matrimonial business near the ferry dock was William Burrell, who is also buried here at Mount Moriah. It’s entirely possible that he officiated at Helen’s ceremony.

Raising and Relocating

The newlyweds lived in Philadelphia for a few years where William worked as a collector and Helen gave birth to a daughter, Mary, in 1888. By the time their son, Robert, was born in 1893, they were in William’s hometown of Baltimore, Maryland. Pneumonia took the little boy’s life after nine months and they moved back to Philadelphia. Two more children, Donald and Emily, were born there in 1895 and 1897, respectively. What William was doing for a living after each of these moves is unknown.

In the summer of 1897 they moved to Sutton, West Virginia where William was listed in the 1900 census as a lumberman. It must have been quite a change for those urbanites to be in the middle of a sparsely-populated wilderness. (Sutton is almost in the geographic center of the state. In 1900, the population was 864; in 2020 it was 863.)

Their experience in the mountains was brief, returning to Philadelphia. where he was listed in the lumber business in the 1902 city directory. Helen was in the directory, same home address, with the occupation of grocer. On top of that, she began classes at Women’s Medical College of Pennsylvania, the first of its kind in the world to grant medical degrees to women.

New Century, New Careers

She had just turned 30 in 1901, the same year her oldest was 13 and the two others were not yet teenagers. Still, she and 41 other women earned their medical degrees in 1905. That summer she passed her licensing exam to practice medicine. 

In the months following, each of the Proctors experienced major changes. Helen was employed at the Women’s Medical Hospital Department of Gynecology. William began a new career selling insurance. The family moved to a home at 3218 Dauphin Street across from Fairmount Park, and they all became members of 29th Street Methodist Episcopal Church. 

Helen wasn’t blazing any new trails, since by this time an estimated 1000 women in Philadelphia had the same credentials as physicians. But the dawn of a new century also saw the beginnings of a revolutionary cultural shift for women, and she helped bring about that change.

An example of that was when she joined the Ladies of the Maccabees of the World, a benevolent or “mutual aid” society that began as a women’s auxiliary to the men’s group, the Knights of the Maccabees. Fundraising efforts created a pool of funds to benefit their members in need, such as in times of sickness or death. Helen organized a chapter for business and professional women in 1909.

The State of Healthcare

Whether planned or not, in the summer of 1912 the 40-year-old mother of three found herself pregnant. Life’s path for the Proctors was not always smooth and straight, nor would it be now. Helen gave birth prematurely on January 17, 1913 to Francis Bonaffin Proctor.

Unfortunately, obstetrical care was rudimentary compared to what it is today. Her labor was complicated by the rupture of an ovarian cyst, and she died six days later.

Survival rates for preemies was low in those days, so despite best efforts, young Francis died of malnutrition on February 2. They were interred with her first son in the Connell family plot, shown above. Both of her parents were also buried in this plot in 1918.