"Dr.Sarah FraserLougen"(January 29-1850-April 9 1933)

She was the fifth of the eight children of Rev.Loguen and his wife Caroline.She was immediately nicknamed "Tinnie,"she was always very close to her father;graduated from high school the same year he became bishop,and thereafter rode his circuit with him,serving as his secretary and

studying German in her spare time.When he died suddenly in 1872,she became head of the household,as her mother had already died and her older sister Amelia married and move away.In the spring of of 1873,while at the train station to begin the return trip from visiting family and friends in Washington,D.C.,she suddenly heard a a small boy scream.A heavily loaded wagon had just run over his leg.A crowd gathered but no one tried to help him.Sarah alone searched frantically for a doctor and finally someone carried him away.Her utter shock at the crowd's indifference to the child's agony prompted her to make this solemn vow:"I will never,see a human being in need of aid again and not be able to help."On this train going home she resolved to become a physician.For the next five months Tinnie studied under Dr.Michael D.Benedict's tutelage,and as the result of her hard work and his influence,she was admitted to the Syracuse University College of medicine October 3,1873.When Sarah received her  M.D.in the spring of 1876,she became one of the first African-American women physicians in the nation.The first was Rebecca Lee (New England Female Medical College,1864)the second was Rebecca Cole (Woman's Medical College,of Pennsylvania,1867),and the third was Susan Smith Steward (New York Medical College for Women,1870),That September Sarah began her internship at Woman's Hospital of Philadelphia.She got along well in Philadelphia and made friends easily.Sarah warm manner endeared her to the children wards,who called her "miss Doc."Besides pediatric and obstetric cases,Sarah also frequently encountered nervous or mental patients on her rounds.One such patient,a Russian emigre,was especially agitated and irritable,and would pass her time embroidering bring,bold colors on black silk.Sarah recalled the soothing effect that soft pastel colors often had upon her while studying,substituted pastel yarns,and taught  her to knit.The calming effect on the patient was remarkable.Nowadays the psychology of color is well-established fact,but in 1870s it had barely reached the stage of theory,and it was mostly trial and error.In the fall of 1978 she moved to Boston to fill a six-month vacancy in an internship at the New England Hospital for Women and Children.In the summer of 1879 she went to Washington to live with her sister Amelia and their Aunt Tin.Sarah opened an office for private medical practice in a room on 13th Street,N.W.,and there made the acquaintance of Charles Alexander Fraser,a pharmacist,who she married in Syracuse on September 19,1882.They lived in Puerto Plata,where Charles owned a drugstore.Sarah gave birth to her daughter,Georgia Alejandrina Fraser,on December 23,1883.No doctor could be found,and only a native midwife using the traditional methods attended her.One year later Charles suffered a stroke and died.She, then traveled widely in both America and Europe,as the century came to close mother and daughter were dividing their time between Paris and Washington,living on investment from the drugstore profits in 1911 Sarah bought a house where in the 1920s she developed kidney disease and memory loss,probably Alzheimer's.She died peacefully at home in her daughter arms and was buried in Lincoln Cemetery in Washington when word of her death reached Puerto Plata,the flags were ordered flown at half-mast for nine days.