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| Advertisement from the Salt Lake Theatre program, 1903. From USHS. |
Her husband, Leigh, died a couple years previous, leaving her a widow with 2 children. Leigh had been in ill health for years, and for a time, the family lived in San Francisco and then Idaho Falls before returning to SLC where Leigh died.
Nell was not a destitute or desperate widow. She was a granddaughter of Brigham Young and a daughter of well-connected Hiram B. Clawson (through his 4th wife, Emily Augusta Young). She had affluent family she could entrust the care of her children while she completed coursework in San Francisco.
Perhaps it was while the family lived in San Francisco that Nell met Dr. Edith E. McClean, or perhaps Nell responded to one of the many advertisements recruiting women to take a 3-month course in “alopecia and dermatology using the Dr. W.S. Gottheil method.”
Edith was a character herself. Also reinventing herself after a divorce, she built up a hair restoration business in San Francisco and rebranded herself as Dr. E. E. McClean offering specialized hair and scalp services and a bottled Medicated Hair Tonic of her own concoction.
Nell was not a destitute or desperate widow. She was a granddaughter of Brigham Young and a daughter of well-connected Hiram B. Clawson (through his 4th wife, Emily Augusta Young). She had affluent family she could entrust the care of her children while she completed coursework in San Francisco.
Perhaps it was while the family lived in San Francisco that Nell met Dr. Edith E. McClean, or perhaps Nell responded to one of the many advertisements recruiting women to take a 3-month course in “alopecia and dermatology using the Dr. W.S. Gottheil method.”
Edith was a character herself. Also reinventing herself after a divorce, she built up a hair restoration business in San Francisco and rebranded herself as Dr. E. E. McClean offering specialized hair and scalp services and a bottled Medicated Hair Tonic of her own concoction.
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| Dr. Edith E. Corey McClean, of San Francisco. |
Nell studied under Dr. Edith and returned to Salt Lake in May 1902 and began her own business to “scientifically treat the hair and scalp” with special attention given to baldness, promising the majority of such cases were curable under the proper treatment.
She also offered manicuring and shampooing. Like Dr. Edith, Nell rebranded herself as Dr. Nell C. Brown. Her offices were in the ornate Templeton Building at 1 S Main St (now Zions Bank Building).
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| Various clippings advertising Dr. Nell C. Brown |
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| The Templeton Building where Dr. Nell C. Brown had her offices. |
In Jan 1904, Nell married John Aski Silver, of the famous Silver Brothers Iron and Foundry Works, and her hair career ended.
However, two of her associates began their own business: Miss Charlotte Lynberg and Miss Carrie Leaker relocated to the Constitution Building.
Nell was widowed again in 1916 and married Morris D. Rosenbaum in 1918. When Nell died in 1937 she had amassed an enormous extended and blended family.
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