Bayerová was born on November 4, 1853 at Vojtěchov near Mělník as the youngest of three children of Josef and Marie Bayer. Her older brother became a miller. Her older sister Marie, was educated to become a good housewife; she married a man, Popelka, who was leasing a brewery. Anna awaited the fate of her older sister, but she was very concerned that after her obligatory school ended, her studies would also end.

      For a few years she attended a nearby German school and later a Czech school in Mělník. A secretary from Mělník, Mr.Vinkler, helped her to obtain her parents' permission to move to Prague. In 1868 she, indeed, did move to Prague where she lived with her aunt. She met Eliška Krásnohorská and Sofie Podlipská. She attended a higher school for girls, gave lessons to earn money and visited the American Ladies Club in Prague. In 1872 without attending a gymnasium (girls were not allowed to enter the gymnasium), she began preparing for the gymnasial exams from first to fourth level. Krásnohorská highly approved of her decision.

      On August 28, 1873 Krásnohorská wrote to her, "We are sisters, dear friend, not only by heart, but also in fate. I had this same fight in childhood, this same feeling of loneliness, this same pain, when my innermost desires order me to to undermine the holy bond of family unity. ...I am full of pride for you, so my wish has become a reality. I wanted to take the measure of a girl like you, one in whom we can solidly place hopes in the rebirth of our sex and who will ask for our full rights to our independence" (p 8-9). Podlipská also approved and invited Bayerová and another student, Kurkova, to see her. But her family had another opinion and in 1874 they wanted her to return home. They claimed that she had become unlovable and undutiful.

      In the same year Bayerová was ill. She dreamed about her home, but she was afraid to return. In letter of August 8, 1874 she wrote to Podlipská: "I do not know if something has been changed since I left home, I am used to coming only after a long time in response to a little letter written "in haste," but I imagine in spirit, in what way would all happen. First urgents entreaties to take no books with me or minimum as it is possible. After the first few days, I would do some sewing so that I do not forget how to do it, and in a short time, make I make some stockings not to be bored. Mornings I would naturally spend in an accommodating, warm and evaporations of kitchen." (p.10) So she did not visit family. To obtain some money she gave lessons especially for Miss Matylda Pešková in her ladies' academy seminar.

      After two years, she passed the exams with honor for the four years course of study. Afterwards, her father began to agree with her about her studies. But, with her mother it was worse. She applied for permission to take the exams for the higher gymnasia classes. She received permission to take the exams for levels five and six. In 1875 she passed the exam for level five, but nothing more. It is not known why. In the autumn 1875, with her parents permission, she moved to Zurich, Switzerland with Bohuslava Keckova, who had studied there since 1874. On October 20, 1875, she began classes at Zurich university as Anna Bayerová, studiosa medicianae Melnicensis Austriaca (*).

      During her studies at the University, she tried to keep contact with her home. She started by advertising the Danish custom of sending poor children from towns to villages which she met in Switzerland. She wrote articles for ženské listy, and for a Zurich newspaper. In return, Krasnohorská sent her ženské listy and Náprstková České noviny, Světozor and Průmyslové listy. In Zurich she finished three semesters and in 1877 she moved to Bern. She quarelled with Kecková and in Zurich school officials wanted her to graduated from the high school for foreign women. Bern officials did not want her.

      Although she could live less expensively in Bern, she nonetheless still had financial problems. Her parents agreed with the school and promised to support her, but they were not rich. An education for a daughter did not provide them with any economic security, so they preferred to buy a peace of land when it were possible. In January 1878 she sent her mother a letter asking her to return to Prague since she had no money for her support. This year her sister also died. So no other support was posssible.

      In 1879 she received permission to take lessons from Dr. Janovský. In year 1879 she got 500 fr. from Anna Galvis, an American from Bogota, and also from a Swiss family, the Lenz to continue her studies.

      In 1881 she started to work on her dissertation, "Examination of new born blood" (Ueber die zahlenverheltnisse der Rote und weisse zelhen in Blut von Neugeborenem un Saugligen.) On November 30, 1881 she became the second Czech woman physician.

      In 1882 she returned home. After she left for Dresden to work as an internist in midwifery. In the autumn she met her friend Ms.Galvis in Prague and both took lesson at the University. Both women wanted to work together in Geneva and, later, in Bogota. Bayerová left for Switzerland, but she learned of her mother's death. Thereafter, she was determined not to quit the continent.

      She stayed in Switzerland and after 1883 she worked in the village of Tenfen near Sain Gallen and dreamed of returning to Prague and living with her school friend Katyna Hebdová and about how they would together educate the children of her late sister Marie.

      In 1887 she passed a state exam and went to Baden-Baden to work with Dr. Keller. German women asked her to stay in Leipzig where Augusza Schmidt, an co-editor of Neue Bahnen, would support her. She went to Leipzig, where it was said that she could work but she was admitted among "Kurpfusher", a position she rejected and she returned to Switzerland, where she received a license to open her own practise. In 1887 she opened a practise in Bern. In 1889 Krásnohoská organized support for her. Thirty-one women's organizations from Bohemia and Moravia, lead by ženský výrobní spolek, sent her a letter that they would support her request for permission to work in Prague. She was thankful to a friend in Bern for help, but the invitation came too late so she rejected it. Also her family, her father and her sister's children needed money.

      So she stayed in Bern till 1891 when the Austrian-Hungarian government began looking for female physicians to work in Bosnia and Herzegovina. She applied and became the first state-appointed female physician for Doní Tuzla. She applied for the job and on Novemer 24 she received a decree. On December 30, she got a new one with slight changes. In the beginning of 1892 she left for Vienna, where Minister Kallay in person explained her functions to her: her main task was the hygienic education of Muslim women. So she went into that country when it was belived that "in every women a devil rules which makes it necessary to kill them by pregnancy or work or by both, and when a woman escaped from one or from the other it is necessary to kill the woman".

      In Tuzla she was very ceremoneously welcomed but afterwards problems came. She was not able to find an apartment and had to be a personal guest of Dr. Duller for three months, which limited her practise. Soon she started to have health problems, two time flew and on time diphtheritis and, believing than she had been spared from her family's history of tuberculosis, applied for a six weeks holiday to which she was entiteld and a new place in the mountains Sarajevo. In Sarajevo she worked with women and children and in her free time with local women's organizations, especially with Engliswoman A. P. Irby.

      In Sarajevo she met the opposition of many male physicians. Her boss sent her in the worst weather for the most trivial of reasons to the most maligned parts of Bosnia. And worse, when her colleagues took a holiday, her colleagues reduced her to a clerk. When she objected, she was reprimanded. She resignet for the post. The district governement had to sent it to Vienna. Kallay got angry and took her side. She simply refused to do what they wanted. A man had holiday here with a job to do. But if the official was a woamn, she had a problem since no Muslim women would visit her in her official office. She had a apartment and there worked . So she explain that she was not able to do what the ministry wanted. She must stay at home to be avilable to the women and children. Her boss said to her, " It is ok. I will support you" and, at the same time, he reprimanded her for her activity. She was a state employee so it was in her personnel file. Afterwards, Kallay had it removed from the papers and the local authority was advised to support women doctors. She was asked not to quit, she quit any way.

      One of her reasons was probably the illness of her father. By the time she returned home, she did not find him living. For some administrative reasons, she had to stay in Sarajevo and did not leave on January 30 as she intended. He died on February 6. Her position went to her colleague Bohuslava Kecková, who stayed there until to 1911 when she died in Kostomlaty nad Labem on the visit of her sister. Bayerová had to take care of her sister's two daughters, a mad step-mother, and an old aunt. So she returned to Bern, where she continued her professional and activist activity as a temperance worker.

      In 1900 she returned to Prague believing that she had secured a place. She was forced to leave the position after a month, the santatorium was to small for two doctros, so she stayed in Prague without a job. To return to Bern was not possible since she had given her place to another female physician. Mrs. Náprstková, feeling responsible for her situation, proposed that she teach hygiene to girls at a Prague higher school. Both Krásnohoská and Prof. Bráf supported the idea. He tried to find her a place in orphanage. But Bayerová left for Switzerland where she worked in various sanitariums for pneumatic illness: Leyssin (1901), Geneva (1902), and Chardounes Vevey (1903), where she remained until 1904 when she learned the method of brother Kellgrens.

      In 1907 she learned about the teachings of Mary Baker Eddy from Boston, which she accepted. She began running a sanitarium at the Cha?teau La Ch?telaine in Geneva, a long-time dream. She turned the business affairs over to her companion Miss Hulbert: it ended in bankruptcy. So, once again, she had to find another job. In 1909 she cared for a mad English aristocrat in London and continued of dreaming about returning home. In the autumn of 1909 she returned to Prague, tended her friend Bráfová, and tried to find a job. It was difficult since her Swiss Doctorate was not valid. Friends advised nostrification which she rejected, saying that it is not her fault that she has a foreign doctorate and that she had practised in Switzerland for 10 years. She also rejected idea of Prof. Bráf that she should make a request for a special permit from the Emperor, as Dr. Kerschbaur did years before. With Krásnohorská's help, in the autumn of 1910 she began teaching German and home economics at a German language industrial school in Prague.

      In 1911 she taught in ženský výrobní spolek. She complained, "Our girls are talented, but they are not serious and practical enough. Swiss or English girls they are educated to it." But lesson were few 60 Kr for a month. Prof. Bráf found her a place as a physician in Spolek pro nemocné chorobami plicnímu, in sanatarium in řamberk with 100 Kr each month. But doctors in the region stood together against her, so she resigned. Against the protest of Ms. Bráfová (daugter of Rieger), she went to Dresden to find a job (1912 a 1913). Meanwhile Bráfová and Eliška Máchová tried to get her a job permit which they obtained it in 1914 using a petition from the Union of Czech Women's Organization (Svaz českých spolků českých). During the war, she worked in a soldier's hospital, later in an asylum in Bohnice. After 1915, she worked as a professor of hygiene at the municipal Prague industrial school. She taught 14 lesson a week for 1400 Kr per year. She also gave lessons for ženský club (Women's Club) and in 1912 she a started nurses course at the Women's Club.

      In the family of Ms. Bráfová, she found a friend and she was not alone any more. Later she wrote to Paula Moudrá: "I am against women wanting to live and work as men but not with men. I would like to help men uncover the good core of their manliness: to be unafraid of women, to refuse to hold them contempt, and to accept women completely among themselves." After WW I she was very happy for her country's newborn freedom. She recieved a great job at Red Cross. She continued teach until 1923, when she was to tired to continue it. On January 25, 1924 her friend Bráfova found her dead .

      Source:

      Anna Honzáková, Doctor of Medicine: Anna Bayerová 1853 - 1924, Praha, 1937

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last updated August 2000