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Judith L. Pearson, "Radical Sisters: Shirley Temple Black, Rose Kushner, Evelyn Lauder, and the Dawn of the Breast Cancer Movement" (Mayo Clinic Press, 2025)
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C
Hello, everyone, and welcome to the New Books Podcast. I'm Deidre Tyler, host. Today we'll be talking with Judith L. Pearson, author of Radical Sisters, Shirley Temple Black Rose Kushner and Evelyn Ladder and the dawn of the Breast Cancer Movement. How are you doing today?
- [01:57]
A
I am wonderful. Thank you so much. Fall is about to arrive in Florida, so I'm really excited about that. Great.
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C
I wonder if you could start by telling the audience a few words about yourself and how you got started on this project.
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A
Absolutely. In a nutshell, because it's kind of a winding story. I found a lump in my cleavage two months after a clean mammogram in 2011. I was a newlywed. My son was about to deploy to Afghanistan and it was breast cancer. So I soldiered through mastectomy and chemotherapy and couldn't find the next book subject. So started a little organization. And through that, met the woman who became the inspiration for my first post cancer book. And then that book introduced me to the subject of my next post cancer book. And through those two, I learned about the marvelous Rose Kushner. And here's a little inside scoop about publishing. I wanted to write just about Rose Kushner. And my dear editor and my lovely agent said, listen, we're all in the business to sell books, and it's easier to sell them with known individuals on the COVID And so they suggested I add Shirley Temple Black and Rose Kushner. And, you know, as you've read it, it just made the story so beautiful of the arc that these. Of these three women's achievements. And of course, there were so, so many others as the breast cancer movement was getting started.
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C
Absolutely. Now, you started the book off talking about the Phil Donahue show. What was the importance of that program in regards to breast cancer?
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A
I love reading books that have a prologue that sort of drop you in the middle of the story. And so I do the same sometimes when in biographies, in particular, when it's important to tell a character's backstory before you get to the juicy part, it can be a little boring and a little dry for readers. So my thinking is I'll pick a really exciting thing. Not maybe the absolute climax, but I'll start there. And in this case, that Phil Donahue program was aired in 19, recorded and aired in 1985. So it was really before the breast cancer movement really gained ground, which didn't happen until the early 90s. And I thought it was interesting for the readers to know at the outset what women's. What breast cancer treatment and women's health in general looked like. You know, there was such a veil of secrecy, and nobody wanted to talk about cancer, Nobody wanted to talk about boobs unless they were on the COVID of Playboy. And so Rose was on the set with a very well respected and still living cancer researcher and oncologist, Dr. Mark Leapman, who was with the National Cancer Institute. And they kind of. They kind of jousted a little bit. He would write an article, and Rose would counter that with another article. But I also wanted to paint the portrait of Rose. And as a writer, it's so much fun watching my subjects either on a video or staring really hard at a bunch of photos, because you can really get a feel for who they are.
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C
Yes. Now, in chapter one, you had a story about the woman, her maid, and what happened on the ship in 1915.
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A
Well, it is an irony that before these three women ever had cancer. They all nearly died, and no one knows that. So I thought this particular little side story was interesting. The Lusitania was ocean liner that was bombed in 1915 by a German U boat. Mined actually by a German from a German U boat. The ship went down very fast. I think faster than even the Titanic. And far fewer people survived. One of the women who did survive was suffering terrible survivor guilt which many. Breast cancer. Cancer, excuse me, any cancer. Many cancer survivors also have if they know other people who had the disease who died and they lived. And in this particular case, the survivor was good friends with the American artist Mary Cassatt. And so she had this discussion with Mary. And Mary said, if you survived, it is because there is more for you to do in the world. And that was just so incredibly true for Shirley Rose and Evelyn, because if they had died, very crucial pieces of where we are now in the world of breast cancer would have been missing.
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C
Yes. Now, Shirley Temple Black and the woman with the gun tell us about that.
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A
You know, it's so funny. So Shirley became an actress at the age of three and she officially retired twice. Once at 17 and again at 21 or 22. And yet for the rest of that poor woman's life, even though she was very active in the government and certainly in breast cancer, not as active as the other two, but she played her part. All anyone remembered about was the fact that she was a child. Far all the newspaper articles refer to her as that, even the ones talking about her mastectomy. So she was about to. She was in a movie, which I watched the whole movie. It's called the Bluebird. It is the wackiest movie. It makes no sense. It was actually. It came out just a few months after the wizard of Oz, and it's somewhat like that. But it couldn't possibly have copied the wizard of Oz because it was already in production when Oz came out. But this. But Shirley plays the main character. The box office sales were miserable and so the studio asked her to make a live appearance, which she rarely did. Her mother was her manager. And they just really didn't do that very often. But Mrs. Or Mrs. Temple agreed. And Shirley was standing on stage with Nelson Eddy, who was a famous singer of the time. And this was going to be a live radio broadcast as well as before, a live audience. And a woman appeared in the audience with. Stood up and pulled a gun out of her handbag. Shirley could see her because she was so close to the stage. All Shirley had to hide behind was a microphone stand and for whatever the re. For whatever reason, the woman never pulled the trigger. Her mother actually had seen her a little bit earlier and had alerted the studio, who alerted the authorities. And two men came from either side of the aisle and wrestled her down. And later, the woman said that on the same day Shirley was born, born, her infant had died. And she just was convinced that Shirley had stolen her infant soul and wanted to release it. But it was. It was pretty terrifying for a little girl of 11 or 12.
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C
Yes. Now, you have a story about Rose Roberts and her journey to America. Tell us about that.
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A
Actually, it's. Her maiden name was Ray Hart. Rayhart, which is a funny name. R E H E R T. It's. It sounds like Roberts, but it's Ray Hurt. She had gone to visit her brother, who was living in Europe Post World War II, and she had scheduled herself on a flight back to the United States. She was about 20, 21. And her brother said, oh, I don't want you to have to go back. He contacted a friend who was in the travel business, and they booked her passage on a transatlantic liner. The plane she was supposed to fly on got lost. It was making a stop in the Azores. It got lost in the mountains and crashed violently. The. The debris field was just enormous, and everyone was killed. And Rose didn't learn about this until she got back to the United States. And fortunately, she had let her family know that she was taking the boat instead of the plane. But it was pretty jarring nonetheless.
- [11:24]
C
Yes. In chapter two, you talk about Evelyn in New York and her chance meeting. What happened there?
- [11:33]
A
She was a student at the Free University, the University of State, University of New York, and went on a blind date with a girlfriend who had a boyfriend, and he had brought his buddy, and the buddy was Leonard Lauder, Estee Lauder's son. This was in the early 50s. And Evelyn, or, excuse me, Estee, had already made quite a name for herself. But Evelyn didn't really know anything about the company or about Leonard. And she found him really sweet, but he was really busy. He was in the Navy. She was busy, and they kind of went their separate ways. And then there was a birthday party for Leonard, and Este went through his address book. Lucky young men today, they don't have address books that their mothers can go through, just phones. But Estee invited all the people she could find in this address book, which included Evelyn, but it also included all of Leonard's past boyfriend or girlfriends. Evelyn, however, really stood out to Estee. And even in the shadow of all these Girlfriends. Leonard realized what a gem she was, and they became more and more serious and eventually married, which was fortunate for the company and very fortunate for those of us who would be diagnosed with breast cancer in the future.
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C
Yes. Now, you also told us about Shirley's first husband, Jack. Really interesting story about what happened there. Tell us more.
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A
He was a handsome guy who was in the military. She was very young. She was 15, I think, when she met him. And he was 18 or 19. He was the brother of a school chum of Shirley's. And they fell immediately in love. And Shirley actually wanted to get married then, and her parents said she had to wait till she was 18. And I think she fudged it by a few minutes, a few months and got married at 17. And if you can recall. Indeed, raw. I can. Being that age and being mad, madly in love with someone and not really looking more further or looking further into the character he ended up being, having a drinking problem. And of course, she hadn't really become Mrs. Agar, Mrs. Jack Agar. He became Mr. Shirley Temple. And she got him a spot in a movie which they play frequently on amc, and she's in it as well. And he became really good friends with John Wayne, who was in the movie. And John Wayne is well known for liking his liquor. So Jack really started drinking then. He's credited as John Agar, I think, in the movie. And it just got worse and worse. And while she was pregnant, she just decided. With their first child, first and only child. She decided that was it. And the baby, right after she delivered, she also delivered divorce papers.
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C
Now, how did she meet Charlie Black?
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A
She had gone through. Anyone who's been divorced can certainly relate to this. Had gone through the public humiliation, all the details of the divorce. She got sole custody of their daughter, which was not unusual at that time, that the mother should. And so she thought it would be a good idea, a relaxing idea to take the family to Hawaii. So her parents, her baby, Susan and Linda. Susan or Susan. Linda. She began going by Linda a little bit later and the nurse, they all went to Hawaii. They were invited to a party with someone that somebody in the family knew was throwing. And Charlie Black was there. He was a surfer. He had been also in the Navy, and he. He worked in intelligence for the Navy. But even though there were rumors that he'd been CIA, his son, anyway, says that he wasn't. But he was handsome. He was really. He courted her in such a brilliant way, and he had no idea who she really was. And she loved that because she. She didn't want somebody else to try and whisk her away because of who she was. He took her boating around the island. They were on Oahu boating around the island. He took her to Luau's. It was just this wonderful courtship. And he was very handsome. And so no surprise then that he would steal her heart. And he was a really kind man, as was his family. They got married in his family's country home in the mountains in California.
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C
Now, in chapter three, you talk about President Kennedy, and then you also talk about the work histories of the women that you indicate in your book. Tell us more about President Kennedy and how he pushed this new frontier.
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A
President Kennedy spoke words that were considered to be completely outlandish in 1960 and still ring so true today. I actually got to know him, quote unquote, through my previous book, Crusade to Heal America, because Mary Lasker, the subject of that book, was very good friends with his mother, Rose. So I delved into a different aspect of Kennedy's new administration, and that was his establishment of the Commission on women in 1960. Women were still thought to be best kept in the kitchen, out of government, out of politics. And Kennedy wisely realized that his mother, his sisters, his sisters in law, and even his wife were the reason that the women came out and voted for it. That and the fact that he was just wickedly handsome. And so he realized that that was the case and felt that he should create something that would begin paying more attention to what was going on in women's lives in America. He wisely chose Eleanor Roosevelt to head up the commission, which she did. And she was. She was actually not the first first lady to step out and do her own thing. There were others who were incredibly strong, beginning with Abigail Adams of the second First Lady. But Eleanor really stood out because of all that she did during World War II, including visits behind the battle lines. Battle. Yeah, behind the battle line. So he chose her to head up this. This commission. And that really sort of got the ball rolling about. Well, women aren't just small men. They have minds that are different and bodies that are different. And it was important to pay attention.
- [19:11]
C
Now, Evelyn worked, but tell us about her work history.
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A
She became a teacher, which in the late 50s, the respectable jobs for women were nursing and teaching. And so she became a teacher and had a choice of a couple of different job offers and chose to teach at a. At a school in Harlem. And she was very petite and had a mostly black class, with the exception of several Hispanic kids. So certainly no one who looked like Evelyn, and she was just very firm and let them know from the outset that there were going to be no shenanigans, that she was serious about her job and she expected them to be serious. But on the other hand, if they didn't have a pencil, she brought a pencil. If they didn't have alarm clocks to wake them up, she brought them an alarm clock. She was really wonder. A wonderful guide for kids who probably hadn't spent very much time with a soft spoken, genteel white woman. And I would love to interview them to see where they've landed and what they thought of this teacher. But then shortly after she and Leonard married, she became pregnant. German measles was still very much a threat to pregnant women. And so she only taught that one year and then had to step down for her health and certainly the health of her baby.
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C
Yes, after Shirley Temple Black's big Hollywood era, she did have work ambitions. Tell us about her career in politics.
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A
She absolutely did. She had run for state representative in California. And as I mentioned earlier with the articles about her breast cancer, the journalists were very quick to point to her childhood acting career and the fact that she had, you know, absolutely no skills, no intelligence, and of course, that's not a requirement. And in fact, sometimes past history of politics, this doesn't bode well for politicians, I think. But she lost the election and she was disappointed. But just like all of her smiling pictures, I think her real Persona was pretty upbeat and pretty positive. She wrote two biographies. One was published autobiographies, one was published in 1968. So after the election, but that election, but before her cancer, the second one is yet to be published. And as an interesting side note, when I spoke with her son, he was like, yeah, we don't want to tell any more stories about our mother because then we will have told the entire autobiography and we'll never get it published. And I said, well, I'm here to tell you that an autobiography is always going to be far more interesting than anything I could write. But okay, so it still hasn't been published. So I don't know her feelings about her cancer, but she did go on in the Nixon administration to become a. To become a delegate to the United Nations. And there are many delegates to the United Nations. We sort of only focus on the ambassador to the, to the un but there are many delegates from countries who work on different committees, and hers was the Environmental Committee. And in fact, she was on her way to her swearing in ceremony when she first found a lump in her breast.
- [23:18]
C
Yes. Now, after you talk about that, you went on in chapter four, and you call chapter four an amputation. August 26, 1970. Tell us about that parade of women.
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A
Well, the. It's an interesting thing that America and much of the world had a women's health movement, but they were not terribly interested in. In having a breast cancer movement. In other words, the people, the very people who were supposed to benefit from the women's health movement, the number is one in eight now who get cancer. It was lower then. They were going to eventually be affected by cancer, but yet it took actual cancer survivors to. To launch the cancer movement. So I think you're referring to. To the march in New York. Yes, on that day. Yeah. So that was because women could be fired or not hired if they were pregnant or if they had a child. We had been thought of for so long as incapable of. Of thinking great thoughts and doing multiple things at one time. And the fact of the matter is, I think we're really good multitaskers. And it's not that I'm anti men. I always say I love. I love men. I. I have a brother, no sisters. I have sons, no daughters. I love men so much. I've married three of them. And so it's not that at all, but the thought of our inabilities far outweighed our abilities. And so women just finally had had enough and said, we're. We're done with this, if you're interested, to the women of New York, if you're interested in changing your future, this is the march to start with.
- [25:30]
C
Now tell us more about Shirley's breast cancer story and how she went public.
- [25:38]
A
At the time, 1972, there were two fairly dramatic and really awful, for lack of a better word, protocols in breast cancer treatment. The first was called the one step procedure. If a woman found a lump, she would go to her doctor. There was no mammography at the time. She would go to her doctor, say, I have a lump. He would immediately reassure her. And it was. 99% of them were He's. He would immediately reassure her that it was probably nothing, that she should go to the hospital. He would make her an appointment because biopsies were inpatient surgeries. He would do the biopsy. She would be fine and go home later that day or the next day. And then when she would get to the hospital now terrified that she had breast cancer, there, of course, are admission papers to sign. And again, the doctor would assure her she would be fine. She would go in for her biopsy and unfortunately, one in five or six would wake up after the surgery to find one or both of her breasts missing. No time to adjust. No time for psychologically wrapping your mind around the fact that you have cancer and that you have to have your breasts amputated. And of the doctors that I've spoken to in the course of writing this accidental trilogy, all of them have agreed that it was barbaric. There was no medical reason to do it that way. Unless a woman had a pre existing condition that would preclude her from again going under anesthesia, the extra week or month would not harm her. In fact, most of us, when we find breast lumps, they've been there for a rather long time. We now know that some people's tissue is dense and so mammography can't see through that, and further diagnostics are needed. But at Shirley's time, when she found that lump, it had been there for a year or more. The second really awful treatment was then how the mastectomy occurred. It was called either a Halstead mastectomy, named after the doctor who developed it in the late 1800s, or radical mastectomy. Halstead believed that if he cut further than just the breast tissue, he could get to the root of the cancer. The word root in Latin is radical. So that's kind of where the mastectomy name came from. And the title, Radical Sisters, is a play on words because of course, we use the word radical for really out of the box ideas or really out of the box types of people, which these three women certainly were. So Halsted would take not only the breast, but all of the lymph nodes. They didn't understand at the time how lymph nodes worked. They are how cancer is spread through the body. And then he would take pectoral muscle, which prevented women from raising their arms for the rest of their lives. And then sometimes he and his proteges took rib cages and clavicles. So even without losing the bone, women were completely debilitated. Shirley said, here's what we're going to do. We're going to do the biopsy, and you're going to determine if it's cancer, and then you make the incision. But I'll make the decision. I'll decide what I'm going to do next. And she had the notoriety and her celebrity power to be able to do that where regular, everyday women didn't have. And sure enough, hers was cancer. And then she instructed the physician, the surgeon to just remove her breast and some of the lymph nodes and that was all. Now we can do what's called a sentinel node biopsy. So in surgery, they inject your lymph system, your lymph node. They find with. Let me start again. They inject your lymph nodes with a blue dye, and then they can find the sentinel node, meaning the first one in this chain of grapes. And if that is clear of cancer, then no lymph nodes need to be taken. If not, they just go down the chain until they find the clear node and then stop there. That didn't exist either. But Shirley was very fortunate. She found her lump early, doing a self breast exam, which she'd been doing for more than a decade. And that too is pretty radical. And then her mastectomy after that.
- [30:33]
C
Now tell us about Rose and her graduating from college.
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A
Rose wanted desperately to be a doctor. She grew up, as she said, in the shadows of Johns Hopkins in Baltimore. And not only were women not doctors. In the early 1950s, her family had no money to send her to school. She was an orphan by that time and living with her aunt and uncle. And they were refugees from Poland, and there was just no need for girls to go to college. So when. So she began a career in journalism after marrying her husband and having children. And finally, in 1970. 1972, I think she graduated. 70 what?
- [31:27]
C
Yes, 72.
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A
Yeah, 72. She graduated from college with a degree in journalism, and she was so intent on making it into the big leagues. She was Jewish and was able to be published in Jewish magazines and Jewish newspapers, but the mainstream media just wasn't interested in her writing. She wrote about. She wrote about some medical things, a lot about Vietnam, but really nothing but having that college degree met, it meant everything to her.
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C
1974, she finds the lump, and that begins her process.
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A
That's right. Yep. So. And interestingly enough, and I tell this story in the book because Rose told the story she was. They. Their kids were out for the evening. She and Harvey were going to have dinner in front of the television. All in the Family was going to be on, and Rose finds the lump, and all of that goes by the wayside. I was a huge all in the Family fan. I didn't realize that there is an episode where Edith thinks that Archie Bunker's wife thinks she has breast cancer. She finds a lump. And so you could watch it on YouTube. It is so fascinating because it's so special. Speaks to what a family and friends and society and the woman herself thought about the possibility of cancer. So anyway, she finds this lump. It's Saturday Night. She can't make a doctor's appointment till Monday, but because they were in Baltimore, living very close to the National Institutes of Health, on whose campus the National Library of Medicine exists, she went there. She called the doctor and made her appointment for later that day and went to the Library of Medicine. I researched there. It's, it's a wonderful place if you're a research junkie like me. She was desperately looking for literature that would help women who had been diagnosed. And there was nothing, nothing for, for the patient, which was shocking, but plenty about the one step procedure and the radical mastectomy. So she didn't know what was going to happen to her, but she knew what she didn't want. And she made her doctor sign a paper that he would take the lump and only the lump. And when she had her biopsy and came out of the anesthesia, his was the first face she saw. And he was angry. You have cancer and you've now just killed yourself, he told her and huffed off. So then she and Harvey started looking for a surgeon who would do a modified mastectomy, modified radical they called it. And they went from Baltimore to Washington D.C. they visited a surgeon there, to New York City for surgeons. None of them would have anything to do with Rose. No, no woman is going to tell me what to do, was one of their comments. And they had to go all the way to Buffalo, to Rochester Cancer center in Buffalo, New York. And she found her amazing surgeon.
- [35:00]
C
Now you even go back to the 1800s with George Washington's mother. Tell us more about that.
- [35:09]
A
Cancer didn't have a very good prognosis for a very long time in our history, right up until about, about the early 80s, late 70s, till chemotherapy was really used in a widespread way. So back in the early 1800s, late 1700s, women just didn't, if they found a lump, they were going to die anyway. The alternative was gruesome surgery with no anesthesia and then having the skin cauterized. I mean, it was just, it was just horrific. And so women just preferred to die. And that's what George Washington's mother did. He was president by that time and the cancer had certainly spread throughout her body. But wherever the initial side is, is where it becomes really painful and really awful. And before her, the Queen of France had, or excuse me, the King of France's mother had the same instance. And that was one of the things that Rose said because Alice Roosevelt, who was Teddy Roosevelt's daughter, was the famous, oh, philanthropist and socialist in Washington D.C. and she had had Both her breasts amputated. But Rose said only presidents, daughters and celebrities live. Ordinary women don't. That was kind of her feeling with this whole thing.
- [36:50]
C
Chapter six. The president has made his decision. Tell us that story.
- [36:56]
A
So Rose had written. She began writing an article about breast cancer from the patient's perspective, having gone through it, having worked with her wonderful doctor in Baltimore who took her under his wing, Dr. Dow. Thomas Dow was a researcher as well. And because she was so far from home, home she stayed for a month because it was easier than going back and forth. A couple of trips from Baltimore, she learned a great deal about the disease, about the treatments. He was just wonderful to her. So she wanted to write this article about breast cancer for women, and she submitted it to the Washington Post, and the editor said, you know, well, maybe we'll run it in a women's section on a Sunday and kind of put it in his slush pile. But because she had so many friends at the National Institutes of Health, she got a call on a September day that something big was going on. The presidential limousine had arrived. And then she got more news that it was Betty Ford and that she would be undergoing the one step procedure the next day. So, so much for privacy and security and all those things that presidents are supposed to have. So she called people at the White House and begged them to let her speak to the President, that she. That Betty Ford didn't have to have a mastectomy. Find out if it's cancer first, then look at her options. And she finally got the president's speech writer on the phone, and he said, just a minute. And he put the phone down, and he came back a little while later and said to her, the President. Mrs. Mrs. Kushner, the President has made his decision. Thank you very much. Which Rose. And of course, then Rose then in every woman today would think that to be relatively ridiculous, that the President would get to decide what happened to his wife's chest. Ironically, the next day, there was a cancer consensus meeting at the National Cancer Institute. The room was filled with cancer researchers and journalists, and Rose was there. And in the course of the discussion during the day, she finally was recognized to ask a question. And she asked if it had been necessary for Mrs. Ford. And the conference was going to be going on regardless. It just so happened that it was the day after Mrs. Ford's surgery. And so Rose asked if Mrs. Ford's muscles were. The removal of her muscles were a medical necessity. And the doctor of whom she asked the question said, no, they weren't. All Of a sudden, journalists were flying out of the room like you see in all the old movies, headed to the phones to call their editors. News flash. Mrs. Ford had too much surgery. And suddenly the editor of the Washington Post called Rose and said, okay, we're publishing your article. And she laughed afterwards and said, if I'd known that breast cancer would get me into the Post, I would have arranged to get it years earlier.
- [40:31]
C
Now, in chapter seven, you talk about the International Women's Year, and you talk about Title 9 and everything, but there's a story about Rose and her breast Cancer Advisory Center. Tell us more.
- [40:50]
A
The Breast Cancer Advisory Center. So Rose's book, her article became a book, which was published in 1975. So she, almost immediately, when she got home from Buffalo, began outlining a book. Harcourt Brace published it. They even sent her to Europe and Russia to go meet with doctors there. And as soon as the book came out and she began her book tour, the world woke up, at least all of America. And she got so many phone calls from. From women, from their husbands because of this radical surgery. Women were embarrassed. They didn't want their husbands to see them naked. There were several cases where women were just wanted to kill themselves, and I'm sure some probably did because they were so embarrassed by their mutilated bodies. And she realized there was nothing. There was the American Cancer Society, but A, that was for all cancers, and B, that was still run by so many men. There was nothing for breast cancer survivors, no support for breast cancer survivors after their surgery. So she started this hotline from her kitchen table, taking phone calls, and it never stopped ringing. And she eventually was able to secure grants and donations and move it out of the kitchen. Her daughter is delightful. Leslie and I had so many long conversations, and we still zoom about once a month. She's just. She's so much fun. And she said as a teenager, when no one was supposed to answer the actual hotline phone, but before they got that, these people were calling their home phone. And so Leslie, as a teenager, of course, would race to the phone, answer it, and then shout to her mother, mom, it's another lump. And then Rose would come to the phone to try and calm down the woman on the other end. But it was. She wrote materials that she would ship out. She'd send them. Send it to doctors. I mean, she just really carried this heavy load. And. And it must have been having had. Having experienced the death of my survivor friends. I can only imagine that number times. I don't know how many that Rose had to Wade through. It just must have been so difficult for her. She. She was some kind of saint, that's for sure.
- [43:35]
C
Absolutely. Now, you know, you talk about the reconstruction surgery and how insurance has discriminated against women. Tell us how Rose played a role with that.
- [43:49]
A
Let me share a little story before I do that. My adorable mother in law, who will be 93 next year, she's 92, was a nurse. And many years ago, about the 1970s, about the era that we're chatting about here, she had a friend who had a mastectomy. And so my mother in law, you know, made chicken soup or something to take to her friend. And her friend on the day that my mother in law arrived was so distraught because she had had an appointment that morning with her surgeon. And I also need to tell the audience that there weren't any breast specialists. Breast surgeons. So in this era, the surgeon who took your breast, wedged it in between an appendectomy and a hernia and a tonsillectomy. I mean, they were not specialists at all. And so this woman told my mother in law that when she asked her surgeon about the new reconstruction that was being done, he said, my God, woman, how vain are you? I just saved your life. And I think, I think it's really interesting because in our society, breasts are so adored, but, you know, when they get cancerous, they become so ignored. They're just things that can be removed. But reconstruction destruction kind of came on board on the heels of breast augmentation, which had kind of a clunky start but eventually grew in popularity. And there's another really good book called all in Her Head that talks about different. The different systems of the body and how women's experiences are different. You know, whether it's skeletal, neurological, digestive, and the skin. And so the history of plastic surgery is told in that, and it's really fascinating. So as, as breast surgery, the augmentation part became possible, surgeons and now this new plastic surgery specialty realized, well, we could reconstruct a woman's breast, but insurance wouldn't cover it. I mean, again, it was just, no, it's not necessary. It's some vain thing that a woman wants to have. Now, I'm here to tell you, as someone who's had cancer, I have two lumps on my chest, but one of them doesn't look anything like the other one. So it's not exactly like putting you completely back together again. And so it was just looked at as an unnecessary surgery. Although representative Pat Schroeder from Colorado, who was Just very vocal in the breast cancer movement once it got started in the 90s, said, you can bet if I told every man on, on Capitol Hill that he was going to lose one of these testicles this year, or every, every one in every one man in every eight was going to lose one of his testicles this year, there'd be a big flurry of testicle reconstruction.
- [47:16]
C
Now, you talk about Susan G. Coleman. Tell us about that foundation.
- [47:23]
A
Susan was the sister of Nancy Brinker, and Susan got breast cancer. She wasn't interested in seeking out more experienced cancer doctors at the time. They were called cancer doctors. They weren't even called oncologists yet. And so just went with the flow. They lived in southern Illinois, and the doctor, although he was very boastful about having gotten it all, he did not. And her cancer came back with a vengeance. And as she neared death, she asked Nancy to promise her that she would do whatever she could to prevent other women from having recurrences, from having to go through the indignities of sitting in cold hospital rooms, of having better, some. Some form of better preventative measures. And Nancy did, and she first approached the American Cancer Society and said, look, I want to raise money for breast cancer research. And the representative, they were at a cancer meeting, and I think he might have been the featured speaker, said, well, I'm, I'm glad that you want to raise money for us, but there are so many kinds of cancer. I. I can't say that whatever you would raise would be just for breast cancer. So go ahead and send your check to us and we'll send you a thank you note. And that wasn't good enough for her. She. She married. Was married to Norman Brinker, who was the brains behind Chili's Restaurant and several other restaurant chains, sort of like Chili's. And so she had quite a. Quite a social address book. And she called her friends together and they created the Susan G. Komen foundation for Women and have raised so much money, to be sure. And then Nancy stepped away. I mean, it's exhausting what she was doing. She lives here in Florida. Florida. And she stepped away a number of years ago and left it in capable hands. And she created the Florida Promise Fund, which is the last leg of the promise that she made to Susan. And it makes mammography possible for women who are uninsured or underinsured, of which we have a great number here in Florida in an astronomical number as compared to the general population, which I was really astounded at when I got here. A Couple of years ago. So, you know, Nancy's heart is as big as the world and I'm, I'm fortunate to call her friend. And she wrote the foreword for the book.
- [50:27]
C
Yes. Now in chapter 10, you talk about Martha Mitchell effect and Mrs. Reagan, President Reagan's wife.
- [50:37]
A
Yes. Yep. Yeah. So the Martha Mitchell effect was that Martha was sure that President Nixon was doing illegal things and that her husband John, who was the Attorney General, was going to be thrown under the bus and that she had to get the word out. And no one believed her, no one thought it was serious. They just kept patting her hand, saying, oh, Martha, you're fine, you're fine. And in fact, during a very crucial time in the whole Watergate scandal, her husband allowed her to be kidnapped and kept sedated somewhere in California. But the Martha Mitchell effect is actually what we now call gaslight lighting, where you're told that what you think to be true is not really the truth, that you're imagining it. You have a mental illness, you're already around the bend, your dement, you have dementia. It's not really happening. And women were told that repeatedly when it came to their own health. And you know, Deidre, just the other day, where are we? This is Friday, so Tuesday or, excuse me, Wednesday. I spoke at an event in New Jersey and two different women told me that they had found lumps and that their doctors had told them it was probably nothing. Just go home and we'll check it in six months. And that's exactly what the Martha Mitchell effect is. The Nancy Reagan part of the story is this. So by the time Nancy Reagan was diagnosed with cancer in 1982, was it help me with the years I can't remember, 82, 85, something like that. Rose was already a very loud voice. And in addition, there were others who had joined her. And Nancy set them all back a decade by just agreeing to have a one step procedure and a radical mastectomy. And you've seen pictures of poor little Nancy Reagan. She was just a stick. I can't even imagine what a radical mastectomy must have done to her ability to function afterwards.
- [53:10]
C
Yes, chapter 11. You talk about Dr. Susan Love. What was her advocacy about?
- [53:18]
A
Dr. Love was one of the very first women to be vocal about women speaking up for their health. And in addition to very often men making the decisions, particularly if a woman was unconscious in the hospital or in the surgical ward and the doctors would come out and say to husbands and family members, what do you want us to do? Women just were no one was supposed to question doctors, but particularly women were not supposed to question doctors. And so as the number of women doctors began to grow and they started taking time with their patients and saying, this is the way it's supposed to. To be. Again, women are not just small men. Women started taking heed. And so Susan Love was one of the very first ones of those. And she, along with Fran Vsco, convened a meeting in Washington, D.C. which became. Actually, Fran was in the audience. It was Dr. Love speaking. And then Fran became the chair or CEO of the national coalition for breast Cancer. Of breast cancer. For breast cancer, excuse me. And Dr. Love was funny. She said afterwards, I had the great good fortune of invent, of interviewing her. And she said she had no idea that that meeting would cast her into the stratosphere like it did. She said, I was just mad and just wanted to let people know. And she spoke again, this time in Salt Lake City, and women came up to her afterwards and said, great, where do we sign up? We're ready. Let's. Let's have a movement. And she said, you know, talk about putting the cart before the horse.
- [55:18]
C
Now you talk about Evelyn and her pictures. How did she raise all this money for the pictures she exhibited?
- [55:28]
A
So among Evelyn's many talents, the business talents in particular, and the creative ideas that she came up with for fundraising, she was a photographer. She loved taking pictures. And in fact, when she collaborated with her breast surgeon, Dr. Harry, Dr. Larry Norton, to create the Evelyn Lauder Breast center at Memorial Sloan Kettering, they couldn't afford artwork for the walls. And so they just blew up her beautiful pictures of nature to create this Zen like setting. Some of her pictures found their way onto family Christmas cards and holiday cards. And so then she got the idea of why not put them into a coffee table book and sell them to make money for her second of three brainchilds, which was the breast cancer Research foundation, she and Dr. Norton realized that there were many young investigators who couldn't get the big grants and couldn't get the big funds because they weren't far enough along in their research. But they couldn't get farther along because they didn't have the money to do it. So that's Breast cancer research foundation's mission. And her books helped raise money for that. And I actually am thrilled to say I found one on ebay signed by Evelyn.
- [57:00]
C
Wow. Now, after a person reads your book, what is the overall message you hope they would take away?
- [57:08]
A
Well, so the, the first, first and foremost, foremost is that it shines. Can shine a mirror onto the reader herself or himself, so that they can think about, okay, so if I got a cancer diagnosis or some other devastating news, how would I react? What would that mean to me? What would I do? And then my second wish. And this has sort of been the theme of all things. Three of these, this accidental trilogy that I wrote is the cultural anthropologist Margaret Meadward. She said, never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it's the only thing that ever has. So between their advocacy and Evelyn's probably most memorable project wedged between the Breast center and the Research foundation, was that she was the co creator of the Pink Ribbon. You know, whether you have great privilege and great wealth or whether you are an ordinary citizen, there's always something you can do, large or small, to change the world, whether it's cancer related or not.
- [58:24]
C
Absolutely. Well, I've taken up enough of your time. Can you tell us the name next project you'll be working on?
- [58:32]
A
I can. It is a little bit. It is a departure from the medical world and it is about an incredible woman in the 1950s, which is truly the forgotten decade of women. We had Rosie the riveter in the 40s and all the women's movement in the 50s, or exc in the 60s, but the 50s, you know, they're just, they're the forgotten decade. And so I want to tell a story about a woman there and I can't divulge the name until the contract is signed, but I'll be back in a couple of years if you allow me.
- [59:10]
C
We'll be looking forward to that one. And again, we've been talking with Judith L. Person Pearson and she's the author of Radical Sisters, Shirley Temple, Black Rose, Evelyn Evelyn and the dawn of the Breast Cancer Movement. Thank you so much for being on the podcast.
- [59:29]
A
Thank you so much.