"Georgia Esther Lee Patton" ( April 16,1864-November 8,1900)P

Physician and religious worker,was born into slavery mountainous Grundy County,southeast

Tennessee,the youngest of her parents many children.Little is known about her parents,both of whom were born into slavery in Tennessee.Georgia's mama was widowed while pregnant with her.When Georgia was two,the family settled nearby in Coffee County,where her mama took in laundry.The local school opened only a few weeks each year,if it all.Between her ninth and seventeenth years, Georgia's formal education totaled a mere twenty-six months.When Georgia was sixteen her mama died and her siblings took over her care.They pooled their resources and sent her to Nashville's Central Tennessee College (later Walden University) in February 1882.She had to spend most of each year earning her living expenses instead of attending classes.By 1890 she completed the entire normal (teacher) curriculum.Georgia then excelled in the College's Meharry Medical Department (later a freestanding medical school) and earned her MD on February 7 1893,becoming-with Annie Gregg-one of Meharry's first two women medical graduates.According to the journalist and anti-lynching crusader Ida B.Wells,Georgia was "early imbued with the desire to go to Africa as a medical missionary."Her aspiration meshed with the American Colonization Society's recently declared (1892) refocus on Liberian nation-building instead of mass emigration.Few other African American doctors beside Alice Wooby McKane sought to practice in Liberia (or elsewhere in Africa,for that matter).When Georgia's Methodist Episcopal Church missionary society rejected her funding appeal,she paid her own way,explaining,"I GO TO Liberia for the good I want to do for others,to relieve the suffering,and to assist in radiating the light of Christianity and civilization to other parts of Africa...After two years I hope to return to this country,to take a post-graduate course in medicine,and then return to Liberia able to do better work in the line of medicine.I look forward to a long life to do good and help build up Africa."
On April 5 1893 she boarded a steamer to Liverpool,England,sharing a statesroom eith Ida Bell Wells Barnett,on her way to a British speaking tour.At first,Ida triumphantly declared her lack of seasickness and her confidence in Georgia's medical skill if she should take ill.Three days out,Ida wrote:"Seasick: "Seasick. So is Georgia E.L. Patton.We...lie in the two lower berths looking at each other.Ugh." After nine days they landed in Liverpool and stayed together at the Shaftsbury Hotel until Georgia shipped out to Monrovia,the Liberian capital.Despite her missionary beliefs,Georgia earned the respect and trust of the Liberians she treated.Initially uncertain how to practice her profession without familiar drugs, instruments,and operating rooms, she adapted rapidly and skillfully, even saving the lives of patients deemed hopeless cases in the local community.She wrote Meharry dean George W.Hubbard that lost only four patients out of a hundred.After two years she returned to the United States,but not for further medical training as she had planned.She was running out of money and suffering from tuberculosis.She never fully regained her previous vigor.In 1895 Georgia opened a private practice in Memphis,Tennessee.She was the first African American woman to hold a Tennessee physician and surgeon's license and to practice medicine in Memphis.Georgia married David W.Washington on December 29,1897.David,then forty-five years old and himself an emancipated slave,was the first African American postal carrier in the city.Both spouces were active church members and generous philanthropists.The Freedman's Aid Society nicknamed Georgia "the Gold Lady"for her regular donations.Nevertheless she once received a thank-you letter addressed "Dear Brother." She wrote back that she was not a brother,enclosed an additional sum, and asked to to be addressed as
"Dear Sister."
On February 14 1899 she gave birth to her first child,Willie Patton Washington.He lived less than a day.On July 11 1900 she had a second son,David W.Washington.Four months Georgia passed away in her home.On November 23 1900,the inflant died.In Zion Christian Cemetery,the original African American burial ground in Memphis,Georgia and her two babies were laid to rest together under a magnolia tree.Her widower later married a schoolteacher and became a prosperous landowner and businessman.He died in 1930 and was also buried in Zion.