Pacific Northwest Veterinary Biographical History Files, 1977

The Pacific Northwest Veterinary Biographical History project was conducted in 1976-1977 by the WSU College of Veterinary Medicine, the Washington State Veterinary Medical Association, and WSU’s Manuscripts, Archives, and Special Collections.

One of these autobiographical files was used in a student writing for a contest sponsored by the Highline (WA) chapter of the National Organization for Women. The student, Lorain Miller, wrote her winning essay about Catherine Elizabeth Roberts, the first woman to graduate from Washington State College with a veterinary degree (1933).

Catherine Elizabeth Roberts Frasier (1907-????) was born Catherine Elizabeth Roberts and raised in Eureka, CA. Her step-father was a veterinarian, and urged her to pursue that, after which she enrolled at WSC. She notes being briefly married just out of high school and then again to one of her fellow students while at WSC, apparently Stanley Arthur Robinette, the latter resulting in several of her mentions in local publications being as Catherine Robinette. She was the first women to graduate with her veterinary degree (DVM) there, in 1933. She was the first female to pass the California State Boards. She practiced as a veterinarian for years as Catherine E. Roberts, despite entering a long-term marriage with Lew Frazier in 1936. Only after retirement from veterinary work did she publicly adopt her husband’s name; she was known in the Eureka area community as Doc Roberts all her life.