Elise Strang L'Esperance- An Extraordinary Woman from Yorktown

On January 23, 1888 a man from Yorktown was brought to Bellevue Hospital New York City in a delirious state. Within four days he would be dead from an acute pneumonia infection. The deceased-- Albert Strang-- was an experienced medical doctor, son of a prosperous Yorktown family and only 45 years old but no one was safe from the ravages of bacterial infections before the advent of antibiotics in the mid-20th century. 

He left behind a wife and the three young daughters they were raising in the large house that still stands at the corner of Old Crompond Road (route 202) and Granite Springs Road across from the entrance to the Mildred E. Strang Middle School.   

Albert Strang’s life and tragic death made a strong impact on his youngest daughter Elise who was destined to become one of the most influential pathologists in American medical history. Elise received her medical degree in 1899—an extraordinary feat for a woman at that time. Sensing that that the best way for her to help patients was through teaching and medical research, she became the first female research assistant and then the first female professor of pathology at the Cornell University Medical College in Manhattan. 

After her mother died of cancer in 1930, Dr. L’Esperance (she had married attorney David L’Esperance) devoted the considerable inheritance she received from her mother’s family to create the first clinic dedicated to cancer prevention—a revolutionary concept at that time—that she directed for two decades.  Before she died in 1959, Dr L’Esperance was awarded the Lasker Award for Public Health Service and the Clement Cleveland Medal of the New York City Cancer Committee. 

It is likely that we all know someone who has benefited from Dr. L'esperance's efforts. The Strang Cancer Prevention Center was instrumental in developing and promulgating the Pap smear test for cervical cancer as well as screening tests for other cancers.  Now affiliated with New York Hospital-Cornell Medical Center, it continues in its efforts to reduce cancer deaths. In addition, the Elise Strang L’Esperance Prize in Public Health continues to be awarded to the female student at the Weill Cornell Medical College who best reflects her attributes and values. 

Dr. L’Esperance was born in Yorktown and lived here until moving nearby to her mother’s hometown of Peekskill following her father’s death. Her contributions to medical science should be locally commemorated in some way.

In the meantime, the next time you pass by her childhood home across from the entrance to the middle school that is named after her younger relative, take a moment to think of the Strang family and their considerable contributions to Yorktown and the country as a whole.