Chicago Tribune, September 29, 1977
The daughter of former slaves, Lydia Eudora Ashburne (Evans) was born in Portsmouth, Virginia, in 1887. She was one of 12 children. Her father, she said in a 1977 Chicago Tribune interview, was “a big, strapping fellow who fought in the Union Army during the Civil War.” She added, “He taught us strength and gave us determination that, despite all odds, we could make something of our lives.”
In 1908, she graduated from Norfolk Mission College and entered Howard University Medical School. One of her older brothers, a doctor, tried to dissuade her from following in his footsteps. He felt she would never be able to establish a medical practice nor she would find a husband. She didn’t listen to him. She was the first Black woman to graduate from the school and the first Black woman licensed as a general practitioner in Virginia.
Ashburne left Virginia and opened an office in Chicago in 1916. She was twice married and juggled being a mother to her daughter with a medical practice at a time when that wasn’t commonplace.
A member of the Delta Sigma Chapter of Sigma Gamma Rho Sorority, Inc., she served on the Board of the National organization from 1930-35. At the 1939 Boule (convention) in Cleveland, Ohio, she was part of a panel discussion, “How does our sorority met the needs of your community?” She was also active in the National Council of Negro Women and in 1936 was its Third Vice President.
In 1976, the Daily Sentinel, a newspaper in Woodstock, Illinois, told of two students in a junior high reading class who sent a letter to Ashburne. She wrote the students back and told them how to succeed. “There must be a will to do, love and respect for your fellow man, and above all, to be true to your divine maker,” wrote Ashburne.
A friend said of her, “She just won’t beat her own drum….I remember how, during the depression, she used to treat hundreds of school kids free. They were too poor to pay for their examinations for school and camp, and she did it for nothing.”
Ashburne established the first United Cerebral Palsy office on the south side of Chicago. It was in her medical office at 38th Street and South Park Avenue. She organized a drive to raise funds for braces and wheelchairs for those suffering from CP.
She is a member of the Chicago Senior Citizens Hall of Fame. In addition, Ashburne was honored by the Cook County Physicians Association, Howard University Medical Alumni Association and the United Cerebral Palsy Board of Directors.
Ashburne retired from her medical practice in 1977. She died on January 20, 1992 at the age of 105.
