Frances Cress Welsing, a psychiatrist best known for writing The Isis Papers, was born Frances Luella Cress in Chicago, Illinois, on March 18, 1935. Welsing, who was the child of physician Henry Cress and teacher Ida Mae Griffen, grew up the middle of three daughters. She received her Bachelor’s of Science from Antioch College in Ohio in 1957 and her medical degree (M.D.) from Washington, D.C.’s Howard University in 1962.