She was also four months pregnant. Harriet had grown up in Houston, the daughter of two physicians. Her parents practiced in the same building: her father, a general practitioner, at one end; her mother, a pediatrician, at the other. Her father’s practice and examining room were integrated, but he kept his waiting room segregated because he thought people would feel more comfortable that way. Her mother’s practice was mostly white. When her father was serving in World War II, Harriet’s mother took her on her nightly rounds or to the Jefferson Davis charity hospital where she trained nurses. “I admired her beyond description,” said Harriet. “When the phone rang at home and a patient would ask, ‘May I speak to Dr. Schaffer,’ I would always have to say, ‘Which one?’ She was Doc Helen and he was Doctor Jimmy. I thought they were amazing and wanted to be a doctor until I took biology in college and couldn’t stand the labs.”Harriet’s family was active in the Jewish community, and she was president of her Jewish sorority, but she felt the sting of anti-Semitism in high school.
