Edna Guibor, left, owned a veterinary hospital after becoming the University of Missouri College of Veterinary Medicine's first female grad.

Courtesy of Janet Pipes

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Dr. Edna Guibor was an elegant blend of analytical thought, poetic spirit and daring adventure.

As a young woman in the '40s, she worked in a munitions factory building bombs before quitting to drive cross-country on a lark. She was the first woman to graduate from her university's veterinary-medicine program. And in retirement she traveled the world, including living briefly with a Maasai tribe in Africa and venturing to the Antarctic.

"Edna was factual, down-to-earth, very good about having her affairs in order," said friend Janet Pipes. "Poor Edna always said, 'I have no social skills,' but she really was very gracious."

Yet Pipes was surprised and charmed last week to find lyrical prose hidden among the grocery lists and notes about everyday minutiae in the papers Guibor kept. Beautifully penned letters Guibor wrote and quotations she liked were written in between reminders to buy safflower oil and information on treatments for the respiratory illness that took her life March 24 at age 85.

Guibor had copied a quote from the late physician and essayist Lewis Thomas: "Statistically, the probability of any one of us being here is so small that you'd think the mere fact of existing would keep us all in contented dazzlement of surprise."

She may have been enchanted with the words of Thomas, but it was Guibor who spent a lifetime surprising her friends and contemporaries.

"She had this understated sense of humor, a shy woman, but she didn't miss a trick. She had a sharp mind," Pipes said.

Guibor worked at the munitions factory until chemicals used in the manufacturing process turned her skin orange. It was then that she took a job at a veterinary clinic and applied to vet school, Pipes said.

While awaiting a response from the admissions office, she and a couple of girlfriends decided to drive from Missouri to California and get jobs. After getting lost in a desert canyon in a misguided attempt to find hidden treasure and taking a job as a cook on a fishing boat which resulted in severe seasickness, Guibor returned to the Midwest to attend vet school.

By the late '40s, when Guibor was a vet student, women constituted only 4 percent of the veterinarians in the country.

In 1952, she became the first woman to graduate from the University of Missouri College of Veterinary Medicine.

Classmate Dr. Cliff Murphy of Missouri said Guibor maintained her composure at school.

"She was going through a deal that was in a man's world, but she did very well. She was a lady at all times. She made a great contribution to the veterinary community and women in veterinary medicine," he said.

Guibor owned a veterinary hospital in Chicago for nearly 20 years before she moved her practice to Friday Harbor on San Juan Island in Washington state. It was from the island that she embarked on her many adventures. After 40 years of overcast skies, though, Guibor left the Pacific Northwest 14 years ago to retire in Tucson.

"She was a very private woman," said her friend of 17 years, Corrinne Hubinon of Washington. "But those of us who were able to enter her world, we saw a woman who was generous and loving and proud of her many accomplishments."

Despite her private nature, Guibor soon endeared herself to dog owners in her Northwest-Side neighborhood.

"She was a very unusually elegant woman. Meticulous in her appearance, meticulous in her choice of words, meticulous in the selection of her friends," said neighbor Priscilla Kuhn.

The retired veterinarian had a well-mannered black standard-size poodle named Jackson. Kuhn had an unruly puppy named Molly, who'd been abused by her former owners. After meeting during dog-walks, Kuhn invited Guibor to her home for a visit and served her guest from her collection of Haviland dinnerware.

"Dr. Guibor asked me if our goal for Molly was to give her good etiquette, good table manners, and we said, 'Of course.' She said, 'I will help you and we'll start with table man- ners,' " Kuhn said. "My family was beside themselves and so was I because we all thought she was going to teach Molly to dine at a table with Haviland."

Instead, Guibor demonstrated a training technique she'd used for decades. Guibor put Molly on Kuhn's table to get her used to being elevated on an examining table in a vet's office and to being touched.

The vet described her technique in a 1974 article in the Chicago Sun-Times: "A human being should be able to touch any part of his dog. We lift his paws. We lift his ears. We open his mouth. The mouth is the dog's most precious possession. When he allows us to open it, he's really showing trust."

Kuhn was impressed with Guibor's demonstration.

"She came over and she gave Molly table manners and I was her student," Kuhn said. "She took control with such grace and elegance that this little puppy of ours has the best table manners and those table manners are transferable to the floor, transferable to a walk."

In their community, Kuhn said, Guibor was always willing to help other dogs and their owners with training.

"Edna was always elegant, but down-to-earth, always real, always kind. I never heard her say an unkind word about anybody, though (she) did say sometimes the behavior of animals reflected the behavior of their owners and she was happy to find so many nice dogs," Kuhn said.