Women of distinction/Chapter 97
CHAPTER XCVII.
GEORGIA ESTHER LEE PATTON, M. D.
Born in Grundy county, Tenn., April 15, 1864, she attended the primary school in the town of Coffee in all about twenty-five months. In 1882 she entered the Central Tennessee College at Nashville. Beginning quite low in her classes, she pushed her way upwards from lower to higher until graduating from the higher normal department in 1890. Then she entered the medical department (Meharry Medical College), and from the first took a high stand in her studies, making ninety her standard. At first her thirty or more class-mates did not receive this new addition to their number with satisfaction, but sought to discourage her. Unmoved by their efforts she pushed her way to the top, and no doubt by her constancy some of them at times feared they might have to take a lower seat.
However, she gained them (as a shrewd woman will most always do), and, unlike former ones of her sex, she stuck to her work like the ever "busy bee" and graduated with honors in a class of thirty-six persons, she being the only female. This is the more remarkable when it is remembered that she had to remain out of school much of her time to earn her bread, having to depend upon her own will and strength for support as a student. It is again remarkable, yes simply wonderfuly when we who have traveled that road learn that her general average was ninety or thereabouts, and she spending only a part of her time at study. She sails for the "Dark Continent" of Africa sometime during this spring, 1893. May her example serve as a stimulus to others of her race and sex, that they may make similar marks of 'distinction in this noble profession! She carries with her our hearty good wishes and our "Godspeed" in the good work of her mission. She will, no doubt, join in with the large number of her brethren (who are successfully practicing medicine all over this Southland) in sustaining the reputation of her Alma Mater, which has done so much for the negro in medicine. We again assert that the practice of medicine by woman does not necessarily rob her of any of those good feminine traits of character.