Griselda “Bee” Hanlon

Birth name: Griselda Frances Gutcheck
Born: January 25, 1922, in Anaconda, Mont. 
Died: January 14, 2010, in Roseville, Minn.

Educational background

Hanlon graduated from the Anaconda High School in 1939. She attended Montana State College where she majored in entomology and graduated in 1943. In a 2008 interview, Hanlon explained:

“I wanted a career that would involve the outdoors. The ‘bug’ world always fascinated me, and I wanted to know more about their world, their beneficial and harmful effects. I was especially interested in the medical aspects in the carriers.”

Early work experience

Following college, Hanlon worked at the Hooper Foundation, which is affiliated with the University of California Medical School in San Francisco. There, she worked on an epidemiology team in a field unit, studying equine encephalitis and its potential transmission to humans. 

In 1944, Hanlon joined the U.S. Navy as a Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service (WAVES). She later served for a year and a half on an epidemiology team in San Diego. After finishing her time in the Navy, Hanlon remained in San Diego to serve as a medical technician studying tuberculosis. 

Inspiration for veterinary medicine

While in the service, part of Hanlon’s duties were that of a page. She recalled one day she made a delivery to the Balboa Park Zoo in San Diego. While there, Hanlon met the head of the zoo’s animal hospital and witnessed her performing a necropsy on a gorilla. 

“It was through my contact with her that I became interested in the diseases of animals,” Hanlon recalled in 1987. Her career decision also was guided by having grown up on a small hobby farm.

Veterinary school 

Hanlon and her husband moved to Minnesota (his home state) so he could apply to medical school. At the same time she considered applying to the College of Veterinary Medicine, which had been open for about a year. She worked part time as a typist in the Rural Sociology Department while taking required livestock courses to make her eligible for admission to veterinary school. Hanlon completed those courses and applied for the college’s second class in 1948 and was accepted—but not without a few bumps. Initially, she and the only other female applicant, JoAnne Schmidt O’Brien, were rejected. Hanlon had returned to Montana for the summer, with plans to head back to Minnesota come fall.  

“And it was just, I believe, a week or a weekend before school opened, and I received a telegram stating they changed their minds,” Hanlon said in 1987. “They were allowing two women into the school. And if I wanted to attend, I should get there on the first day, which I did.”

Upon her arrival, Hanlon learned that Schmidt O’Brien’s summer employers took up a campaign to get the two women admitted, flooding university leaders’ offices with letters protesting the initial rejection. The veterinary school dean relented and added two places for the women. 

When asked how professors treated her and Schmidt O’Brien, Hanlon noted they were kind but kept their distance. “They thought we were screwballs, I guess, getting in with the men,” she said. “We weren’t foolish, we wanted to get through. I don’t recall as far as my classmates were concerned, I think a lot of them just wanted to laugh, they wondered what we were doing there.”

Veterinary and academic career

Hanlon’s role as a pioneering woman didn’t stop after school. Hanlon accepted a research fellowship with the University while pursuing a master’s degree. In 1955, she became the first board-certified female veterinary radiologist in the American College of Veterinary Radiology (ACVR).

Hanlon became the first woman veterinarian on the faculty at the University, and the only one for a number of years—eventually making full professor in 1973. In all, Hanlon’s teaching career spanned 33 years at the University. She retired in 1985, having trained hundreds of veterinary students. In 2009, the University of Minnesota held a ceremony to recognize Dr. Hanlon and other female scientists just shortly before her death. 

Interesting quotes

On why more women started applying to veterinary school during her time as a faculty member:
“[Women] think if they want to get some somewhere, they have to be that much better than men to qualify….This is the innermost feeling. I’ve got to show that I could do better. And I know that JoAnne and I tried our best because we wanted to keep that door open for women.”

Reflecting on her career:
“It’s been really an experience, and I think back, and you’ve asked me if I’d do it over again—I certainly would have. I don’t know what else I would do.”

Fun facts

Hanlon adopted the name “Bee” because her childhood friends couldn’t pronounce Griselda. Her family referred to her as “Baby” which morphed into “BB” and eventually Bee.