Woman of the Century/Mary Blair Moody

MOODY, Mrs. Mary Blair, physician, born in Barker, Broome county. N. Y., 8th August, 1837. She is descended from the earliest New England settlers. Her father, Asa Edson Blair, was a man of the highest standing in the farming community MARY BLAIR MOODY. to which he belonged. Her mother, Caroline Pease, was well-known to readers of magazine poetry twenty-five years ago under her nom de plume "Waif Woodland." After receiving the ordinary common-school training of that day, Dr. Moody for some years led the life of a student and teacher. She taught in public schools, in the Five Points House of Industry in New York, founded by her uncle, and in a female seminary, at the same time prosecuting her own studies. In 1860 she married and is the mother of seven children, all but one of whom are now living. Soon after her marriage she commenced a course of study in the Philadelphia Woman's Medical College, but failing health and the cares of a growing family prevented its completion. The work of caring for and educating her children absorbed the larger part of her attention for a number of years. She personally taught each one of them until they were ready to enter the higher grades of the public schools and has constantly supervised and directed their studies from that time on. In 1876 she graduated with honors from the Buffalo Medical College and has been engaged since then in active and successful practice. She was the first woman to receive a diploma from the Buffalo college. Even in her medical work, her capacity as an educator has been conspicuous, for her efforts towards teaching the families to which she has been called how to avoid disease by following proper sanitary laws have been no less earnest than her endeavors to heal disease and relieve pain. In Buffalo, the scene of many years of her professional activity, she established courses of health lectures, was prominent in the foundation of the Women's Gymnasium, and with the aid of others established a free dispensary for women and children, the latter enterprise being wholly managed by women. She is a member of the National Medical Association, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Microscopical Association, the American Association for the Advancement of Women and other organizations. Her home is now in Fair Haven Heights, Conn.