Born: , United States
Died: 24 August 1995
Country most active: China
Also known as: Elizabeth Corkey
The following is republished from the National Park Service. This piece falls under under public domain, as copyright does not apply to “any work of the U.S. Government” where “a work prepared by an officer or employee of the U.S. Government as part of that person’s official duties” (See, 17 U.S.C. §§ 101, 105).
Elizabeth M. Conard
Yellowstone National Park Park Ranger, 1926
• Born on May 2, 1903 in Philadelphia, PA.
• At age 17, moved to Iowa where her father was professor of Botany at Grinnell College.
• Earned a B.S. in Chemistry from Grinnell College in 1925.
• From June 15-September 10, 1926, was a GS-5 park ranger at Yellowstone National Park, where she worked with her father, who trained park naturalists, at Camp Roosevelt.
• Earned a medical degree from the University of Michigan in 1929 and completed three years of internships.
• Dr. Conard taught obstetrics at Shanghai Medical School, spending 16 years in China caring for women, babies, and the sick.
• Married William Harold Corkey, an Irish missionary, on August 24, 1935 in Tientsin, China.
• Moved with her husband to Japanese-occupied Manchuria, where their two children were born.
• In 1941, placed under house arrest for two years and then moved to a concentration camp with 1,700 others. They left the country in 1946.
• Earned a M.A. in Public Health from University of North Carolina-Charlotte.
• In 1955, became assistant director of the Mecklenburg Public Health Department.
• In 1960, started North Carolina’s first clinic offering women birth control pills.
• Became an abortion rights advocate and helped start the Charlotte Planned Parenthood chapter.
• Died August 24, 1995 in Raleigh, North Carolina at the age of 92.