I'm writing about my ancestors for the 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks challenge. Please join me in taking a moment to appreciate some of the people who helped me be here today!
My 4th great grandmother Mary Ann Foster was born 1 February 1816 in Wilkes County, Georgia, to Lewis Foster and Jane Lawson. She married Lewis Johnson Rigsby on 9 January 1831 in Monroe County, Georgia, and in 1842 they moved to Texas. They settled first in Angelina County, before moving to Tyler County and settling at Woodville.
My 4th great grandmother Mary Ann Foster was born 1 February 1816 in Wilkes County, Georgia, to Lewis Foster and Jane Lawson. She married Lewis Johnson Rigsby on 9 January 1831 in Monroe County, Georgia, and in 1842 they moved to Texas. They settled first in Angelina County, before moving to Tyler County and settling at Woodville.
The Rigsbys had 10 children, the second eldest being my 3rd great grandmother, Eliza Ann Rigsby Barclay Herring. Doctors being scarce in the neighborhood, Mrs. Rigsby began to educate herself in the practice of medicine, taking a particular interest in women's ailments. She taught herself through reading every published medical text and journal she could access and was known as "Dr. Polly".
When she died at the age of 77 on 8 May 1893, she was memorialized in her obituary as "no ordinary woman" whose "skill in the treatment of those diseases peculiar to her sex became widely known, and all the later years of her life were kept busy in works of humanity and charity."
My great great grandfather, James Clinton Herring, carried on his grandmother's legacy. He became a doctor himself and practiced in Jones Prairie, Temple and Burlington, Texas.
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