| Intro | French physician and aviator |
| Was |
Physician Aviator |
| From |
Kenya France Switzerland |
| Type |
Healthcare Military |
| Gender | female |
| Birth |
13 May 1918, Cannes, arrondissement of Grasse, Alpes-Maritimes, Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur |
| Death |
2 February 1999, Nairobi, Nairobi County, Kenya |
Anne Spoerry (13 May 1918 – 2 February 1999) was a French-born physician, based for most of her career in Kenya as a “flying doctor” affiliated with AMREF.
Early life and education
Anne Marie Spoerry was born in Cannes, France, the daughter of Henry Spoerry and Jeanne Schlumberger. Her brother was architect François Spoerry. As a girl she attended the Francis Holland School in London. While she was still in medical school in Paris, she joined the French resistance during World War II. She was arrested in 1943, and spent some time in the German concentration camp at Ravensbrück for her activities.
After World War II, Spoerry studied tropical medicine at the University of Basle.
Career
Anne Spoerry departed France for Africa in 1948, finding work as a doctor at a women’s hospital in Yemen, and eventually settling in the Kenyan highlands, where she lived on a cooperative farm and practiced medicine. She also founded the first Girl Guides troop in the region. At Kenyan independence, she decided to stay and purchased a small farm for herself. In her forties, Spoerry learned to pilot a small plane so that she could practice medicine over a wider rural area, and reach island populations. In 1963 she became the first female member of the AMREF “Flying Doctors,” delivering babies and administering vaccines along with other medical care. In her work, she also carried mail and basic supplies to remote locations.
Richard Leakey praised Spoerry’s work, saying, “She probably saved more lives than any other individual in east Africa – if not the whole continent.”
Personal life
Spoerry’s memoir, On m’appelle Mama Daktari, was published in French in 1994.
Anne Spoerry died in 1999, age 80, after a stroke in Nairobi; she was buried on the island of Lamu. A team of seaborne doctors and veterinarians in the same archipelago named their project for Spoerry.
After she died, Spoerry’s experiences at Ravensbrück were revealed to have been more sinister than previously understood. In the 1940s, she had confessed to collaborating with Nazi prison officials by administering fatal doses of medication to others, when she was herself an inmate.