Always having it her way

Deepa Bharath

Evelyn Rude Winter kind of reminded people of Katherine Hepburn.

She was quiet, confident and unflappable. She had strong facial

features and an even stronger will.

Evelyn was a trailblazer. Born in Enid, Okla. on Nov. 6, 1912, she

got her undergraduate degree from Oklahoma College for Women and a

medical degree from the University of Oklahoma in 1936.

She did her residency during World War II when most of the male

doctors were deployed in other countries. Evelyn, who was in San

Francisco at the time, took advantage of that situation and

specialized not only in obstetrics but also surgery and pediatrics.

Evelyn had decided to dedicate her life to medicine. She was one

of the first female physicians to practice in Saudi Arabia when she

worked for the ARAMCO Oil Company from 1950 to 1952. She delivered

babies for Saudi mothers giving them quality medical care, which they

previously hadn’t experienced.

Evelyn was always thirsty for adventure. She saw the opportunity

to go to the Middle East and she pounced on it.

She came back home with wild stories from her Saudi years. One of

the stories her family enjoyed most was one where a Saudi prince,

believed to be a descendant of the Prophet Muhammad, proposed to

Evelyn.

She politely declined, telling him that her Christian faith meant

too much to her. Marrying the prince would have required her to

convert to Islam. But Evelyn did get to know several members of the

Saudi royal family when she lived there.

Some stories she made up, just to get a corny joke or two out of

them.

She told people about a time in Saudi Arabia when she consulted a

fortune teller, who looked into his crystal ball and started giggling

uncontrollably.

Then, Evelyn said, she slapped him hard right across the face.

And when eager or shocked listeners asked her why she did that,

she’d quietly reply: “My mother always told me to strike a happy

medium.”

Evelyn loved playing with words and coming up with intelligent

puns. She quoted Shakespeare and verses from the Bible with the

nonchalant ease of an English professor or a preacher.

She came to Costa Mesa when she got a job as a pediatrician in

Fairview Hospital. She retired from medical practice in 1981, but

volunteered her services at the free clinic run by Share Our Selves

well into her 80s.

She enjoyed dancing and playing bridge and was a regular visitor

to the Costa Mesa Senior Center.

Evelyn’s family loved that she was quirky. She did marry, but not

until she was in her 40s. That marriage didn’t last for more than

five years. She got married a second time in her 60s, this time to a

machinist, Cecil “Nick” Winter, of Coventry, England.

At that wedding, Evelyn wore a traditional veil, a white blouse

and slacks and left the church with the new husband on a Harley. That

photo is one of her family’s most cherished possessions.

All her nephews and nieces had their Aunt Evelyn stories. When one

of her nephews offered to help clean her apartment, she wasn’t too

happy when he wasn’t doing it her way. When she insisted, he

retorted, saying he thought he was doing a fine job.

Evelyn immediately dismissed him with a flick of her hand, like

she always did and broke into a song: “I’ll do it my way...”

She did always do things her way.