Marie Louise Schoelly Sherwin (1915-1991) was born in Basel, Switzerland, on August 3, 1915. Schoelly’s father, Adolphe Schoelly, was the former Director of the Morgan Bank in Paris. The Swiss family lived in France during Schoelly’s upbringing, and Schoelly attended French schools. Schoelly studied Art History at first, then decided to study medicine and received her medical education from the University of Zurich, Switzerland, in 1941. From 1944 to 1950, Schoelly trained in Internal Medicine, Pediatrics, Surgery and Obstetrics-Gynecology, Psychiatry, and Child Psychiatry. She completed her psychiatry residency at the Psychiatric University Clinic in Basel, Switzerland. In Schoelly’s own words, she appreciated United States’ well-organized and numerous Child Guidance Clinics and sought a scholarship to the U.S.A. as a medical student exchange.

Schoelly practiced psychiatry in New York, joining the Payne Whitney Psychiatry Clinic as a Fellow in Child Psychiatry in 1950. In 1996, she advanced to the position of Associate Professor of Psychiatry at Cornell University Medical College. In addition to her private practice in Manhattan, Schoelly was also affiliated with the French Hospital, the New York Hospital-Westchester Division, the Section on the History of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, the Office of Vocational Rehabilitation, and the Bronx Family Court Mental Health Clinic. As a senior psychiatrist with the court system of New York State for more than 30 years, Schoelly treated abused children.

Her doctoral thesis was on Picrotoxin in the Treatment of Barbiturate Poisoning. Schoelly has published papers on Curate in Electroshock Therapy in Psychosis associated with Tetany. In 1955, Schoelly co-authored “Emotional Reactions in Muscular Dystrophy” in the American Journal of Physical Medicine. During her fellowship at Payne Whitney Psychiatry Clinic, Schoelly met Doctor Albert C. Sherwin, a psychiatric resident at Cornell Medical College, and later married. Schoelly and Sherwin were also colleagues and published “Criteria of Psychiatric Disorder in Children” in Approaches to Cross-Cultural Psychiatry and “Determination of Psychiatric Impairment in Children” in the Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease.

Schoelly was a historian for the New York Society for Clinical Psychiatry. Her research interests included early 19th century German and French psychiatry and late 19th century to early 20th century British and American literature on diagnosis and schizophrenia. In addition to English, Schoelly held French, German, and Italian proficiency. Schoelly’s translation of Ewald Hecker’s “Hebephrenie” was published in the American Journal of Psychiatry. As an active member of the History of Psychiatry Section, she devoted her time to historical research and regularly presented findings at the Section’s seminars. Her unpublished works include a comparison of psychiatric classifications and research analyzing Emil Kraepelin.

Schoelly trained at the Institute of Theology of the Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine in New York City and was ordained to the priesthood of the Episcopal Church in 1978. She served as a priest at the Church of the Holy Trinity and was also affiliated with the French Church of the Holy Spirit. After she passed, Schoelly bequeathed most of her estate to charitable organizations, including several hundred thousand dollars to Cornell Medical Center. It was decided the majority of the funds would serve research initiatives at the Department of Psychiatry, where Schoelly devoted her historical research.