Milner, Virginia Voorhies, 1912-1992

Virginia Voorhies Milner was born and raised in Iowa, the daughter of a Presbyterian minister. Early in life, Dr. Milner decided to become a medical missionary to India. She graduated from the University of Iowa Medical School in 1933, one of six women in a class of 106. She completed an internship in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and her residency at Women's Hospital in New York City.

Dr. Milner arrived in New Mexico in 1939 as an assistant physician for the Presbyterian Women's National Mission Board first at Dixon's Brooklyn Cottage Hospital and then at Embudo Presbyterian Hospital. While her appointment was to be temporary as she waited for an opportunity to go to India, Dr. Milner spent two years working in Embudo. She married in 1941 and moved to Albuquerque where she worked for the New Mexico Department of Health giving health clinics. She opened a private practice in 1960 and retired in 1985. Dr. Milner published a memoir of her time in Embudo in 1989.

Virginia Voorhies married Richard Milner, the architect for the Embudo Hospital, in 1941, and had four children. Dr. Milner died in Albuquerque, New Mexico January 1, 1992.

From the guide to the Virginia Voorhies Milner Oral History, October 1983