texas women – Page 2 – Texas History Notebook

Marie J. Riggs, Cattle Raiser

Maria “Marie” J. Riggs was born Maria Jane McCord on June 23, 1842 to John S. McCord (1814 – 1881) and Sarah B. Watt McCord (1819 – 1896) in Mount Pleasant, Illinois. She was the second of four children born to the couple. John was a farmer, born in Tennessee. When Marie was 18, she married Samuel R. Riggs, also a farmer. Two years later, they had their only child, a boy named John who lived only a year. The baby was born while Samuel was serving in the 116th Illinois Infantry of the Union Army during the Civil War. His Army record says that he mustered in on September 6, 1862 and served until his discharge in December, 1864. Samuel entered the war as a private and was promoted to second lieutenant and later first lieutenant by the time he mustered out. He shows to have been wounded on August 18, 1864 near Atlanta, Georgia and was home on furlough when the war ended.

Frances Rosenthal Kallison

Frances Rosenthal was born November 29, 1908 in Fort Worth, Texas to Mosco “Mose” Aaron Rosenthal (1877 – 1936) and Mary Neumegen Rosenthal (1878 – 1971) who were married in 1903. Frances’ father was a native Texan. He was the owner and operator of Rosenthal Furniture Company in Fort Worth for most of his adult life until he retired due to the illness which took him at the age of fifty-six. Frances was the couple’s only child.

Texas Woman’s University

The concept for Texas Woman’s University dates back more than one hundred twenty years. An article from March 24, 1897 in the Bryan Eagle, Bryan, Texas referenced a Dr. Ellen Lawson Dabbs (there shown as “Dobbs”) who advocated for the creation of a Girl’s Industrial College to be located in Bryan with the only stated opposition coming from a Mrs. Stoddard of Waco who favored that the location of the proposed school would be in Waco. Proponents of the Bryan site favored the location there in association with “A. and M. College” (now Texas A&M University) which was already in operation there, and served only male students. The female school was to be an annex to the existing college. Dr. Dabbs was quoted as saying, “The bill we wish is the only one having the ghost of a chance. This legislature is pledged to retrenchment and cannot afford to appropriate hundreds of thousands of dollars, even if Mrs. Stoddard does permit it to go to Waco. That same bait was offered to me that it might come to Ft. Worth if the Woman’s Council would work for it, but I am not out on this as a local matter. I do not regard public funds as a private snap or even a town snap. I am working for Texas girls and the best interests of all concerned, and through you I beg all our people, men and women, to write their representatives at Austin and urge their support of this measure to open the Agricultural and Mechanical College to girls.”

Margaret “Peggy” McCormick

Peggy McCormick was the owner of the land where the Battle of San Jacinto took place. Her husband was Arthur McCormick. Peggy’s maiden name is unknown. Arthur was born in Ireland in the late 1780s and Peggy is believed to have been about the same age, also born in Ireland. Arthur and his young family had first settled in Louisiana in 1818 before coming to Texas around 1822 as part of the Austin Colony’s “Old 300” group of settlers. Arthur had been trained as a lawyer, but tried to establish himself as a stock raiser after he received his land grant in 1824. He was the head of his family unit and his was one of three Old 300 family groups with the same last name, though the three families do not appear to be closely related. All three families were farmers. Arthur and Peggy had two sons, Michael (1818 -1874) and John (1820 – 1839).

Dr. Sofie Herzog

Dr. Sofie (also sometimes spelled Sophie) Herzog, as she is usually known, was a colorful doctor in Brazoria for many years. “Dr. Sofie” was born in Austria in 1846. Little else is seems to be known about her Austrian family or their background, other than their last name was Daligath, or some variation of this name. When she was still very young, she married a doctor by the name of August Moritz Herzog. She had the first of their fifteen children (including three sets of twins) in 1866 in Austria. Sophie was interested in medicine and received training in the field in Austria. Her original goal may have been to help her husband, so she first earned credentials to become a midwife. Soon, however, she became inspired to study medicine on her own. After earning her medical degree in 1886, she began practicing medicine in Austria.