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Note: N1881 Dr. Lucy Virginia Meriwether Davies
Author Unknown
Lucy Virginia Meriwether Davis Davies (April 18, 1862 - April 17, 1949) was one of New York State's first female physicians; she was also a botanist, civil libertarian, suffragist, philosopher and lover of music and art.[1] She had studied medicine to escape a scandal after she eloped with and then killed her first husband. He had agreed it was self-defence before he died. She married again only to find out years later that her husband had two complete families and two wives.
Lucy Virginia "Dockie" Meriwether was born in Huntsville, Alabama, on April 18, 1862. The daughter of Lide Parker Smith and Niles Meriwether, she took a personal independence naturally.[2]
In 1882 she graduated from the Augusta Female Seminary in Stanton, Virginia.[1]
There was a lot of gossip after she shot and killed her husband even though everyone including the victim agreed it was self-defence. To avoid this, Virginia Meriwether Davis did not go home but went to New York to study medicine[3] at the New York Infirmary for Indigent Women and Children of which Dr. Emily Blackwell was founder and dean. She was graduated in 1886 from the Woman's Medical College with the honors of her class, becoming one of the first female doctors in the United States, and remained in New York to practice.[1][2]
Her medical work has been almost exclusively in connection with the New York Infant Asylum, where she served as resident physician for four years. The institution had at the time the largest lying-in service conducted by women in the United States, and the lowest mortality and sick rates of any lying-in wards in the world.[2]
Four months after her graduation in 1882, Virginia Meriwether and her sister both eloped on the same night. She eloped with Lowe Davis and married him. After the honeymoon she discovered that he was an opium and gambling addict and she left him and returned to the care of her mother. She took her daughter away to the spa of Rhea Springs to recover.[3] Lowe Davis agreed to let her alone but he visited her with a gun which Meriwether's mother persuaded him to relinquish. He left but returned later with another gun with which he threatened Meriwether. She now had the first gun and shot him in the abdomen. Her husband left and before he died he admitted that she had shot him in self-defense and he deserved it. Meriwether showed little emotion at becoming a widow.[3]
In 1892 she married Arthur Bowen Davies (1862–1928), an unsuccessful, but later renowned, artist, whom she met in 1890 while chief resident physician at the New York Infant Asylum. Her parents bought her a farm which they had discovered together, although at one point she had considered buying the property with a woman called Lucile du Pre who was very attracted to Meriwether. Arthur and Meriwether had two sons, Niles Meriwether Davies, Sr. (b. 1893) and Arthur David Davies (b. 1895). When her husband died in 1928, she discovered that he had kept hidden a second life, with another common-law wife, Edna, and family. Edna discovered that she was given a subsistence allowance by Arthur, despite his financial success as an artist.[4]
She died on April 17, 1949, at the farm in Congers, New York, she owned.[1] At 87, she was the oldest practicing woman physician in New York State.[5]
The Virginia M. Davies Correspondence, 1891-1935 is preserved at Helen Farr Sloan Library & Archives, Delaware Art Museum.[6]
Davies Farm, the only working farm left in Congers, is owned by Niles Meriwether Davies Jr., grand-son of Virginia Meriwether Davies. The farm was a wedding present of Virginia Meriwether Davies's father to his daughter. The 110-acre farm on the eastern side of Lake DeForest produces corn, squash and 20 varieties of apples. Every summer, the Davies Farm hosts the "Pick Your Own" apple sales.[5]
References:
Saveli, Isabelle K. "Lucy Virginia Meriwether Davies". Retrieved 6 October 2017.
Willard, Frances Elizabeth, 1839-1898; Livermore, Mary Ashton Rice, 1820-1905 (1893). A woman of the century; fourteen hundred-seventy biographical sketches accompanied by portraits of leading American women in all walks of life. Buffalo, N.Y., Moulton. Retrieved 8 August 2017. This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain.
Bennard B. Perlman; Arthur Bowen Davies (1998). The Lives, Loves, and Art of Arthur B. Davies. SUNY Press. pp. 46–48. ISBN 978-0-7914-3836-7.
Perlman, Bennard B. (1998). The Lives, Loves, and Art of Arthur B. Davies. Albany: State University of New York Press. p. 45.
"If You're Thinking of Living in: Congers". The New York Times. 1990. Retrieved 6 October 2017.
"Virginia M. Davies Correspondence, 1891 -1935" (PDF). Retrieved 6 October 2017.
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Note: N1880 Unknown Newspaper (New York), 21 April 1949
Dr. Virginia M. Davies Dies At Her Home in Congers
Dr. Virginia Meriwether Davies died at 4:30 a.m. today at her home in Davies Lane, Congers, following a three weeks' illness. Her 87th birthday came last Monday. Dr. Davies, who graduated from the Medical College of the New York Woman's Infirmary in 1884, had continued in the practice of medicine from that time until her final illness. She was the college's oldest living practitioner. During the long years of her practice, she had delivered more than 6,000 babies, her 6,000th baby being delivered during the hurricane of 1944. Dr. Davies was the widow of Arthur B. Davies, one of America's most famous artists.
Dr. Davies was born on April 18, 1862, outside of Memphis, Tenn. Her parents were Lide Smith and Niles Meriwether. Her mother, although living in the South, was an abolitionist and a friend of Lucy Stone. Her father was a well known engineer, who laid out the Memphis and Charleston Railroad and the Chattanooga Railroad and was chief engineer for the city of Memphis for 14 years. He was credited with doing more than any one other single person in the reconstruction of Memphis following the Civil War.
Dr. Davies was a descendent of Meriwether Lewis of the Lewis and Clark expedition and of Nicholas Meriwether who came to Virginia in the time of Charles II, from whom he received a land grant of 5,000 acres of land in payment of a loan to the King. Another ancestor was William Douglas, who numbered among his pupils Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and Patrick Henry.
Memory of Confederates
Dr. Davies earliest memory, she used to say, was of climbing into a plum tree when she was three years old to watch Confederate soldiers in their ragged gray uniforms returning home after the Civil War. They were singing "Tramp, Tramp, the Boys are Marching."
Hey cousin of Dr. Davies, Dorothy Dix, (Elizabeth Gilmour (sic)), the noted columnist, recently wrote the Davies family that one of the family traditions as she was growing up was of Dr. Davies as a young girl reading the encyclopedia through from cover to cover.
During the same period she read Shakespeare's complete works over and over again, sometimes aloud to her sister. She was tutored at home and later attended the Mary Baldwin School in Staunton, Va. [Go]ing from there to Medical College of the New York Woman's Infirmary. Her interest in medicine stemmed from the time that she dissected a snake when she was a girl and marveled at the beautiful way its body was constructed.
Among her teachers at medical school with Emily Blackwell, who, with her sister, Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell, had founded the Woman's infirmary in 1863, with seven students and eight teachers. At that time these students and teachers were jeered as they walked along the streets. Even when Dr. Davies graduated in 1886 it was unusual for a woman to be a doctor and the general public was inclined to look askance.
Dr. Davies interned at the new York women's infirmary in 1886, went into private practice in 1887, and became resident physician at the infirmary in 1888, continuing there until her marriage to Mr. Davies in 1892.
Worked in blizzard
She was head resident physician at the infirmary during the blizzard of 1888. For three days the infirmary was without supplies because of the inability of tradespeople to get through the drifts which were 17 feet high in spots. The tiny physician with her assistant organized shoveling crews to cut through the drifts and make a path to bring in milk for the babies.
Dr. Davies married Mr. Davies, noted painter, sculptor, and tapestry maker, in 1892 and with him came to Rockland County the same year to the big farm they had purchased in Congers. Arthur B. Davies with George Bellows and other noted painters was one of the big eight in American Art and Dr. Davies was her husband's inspiration. She encouraged him and his work and in the fostering of the famous revolutionary 1913 Armory Show in New York where modern French art was shown in America for the first time. Mr. Davies' paintings are today included in the possessions of all leading museums.
When Dr. Davies came to Congers to the farm which became as much her love as medicine, she had planned to give up the practice of medicine, but the Knickerbocker Ice Company, the brickyards, and the stone crusher were nearby and there were many accidents. When people found out that she was a doctor, she found she had no alternative but to practice, since her skill was so badly needed. She was first at the scene following one of the explosions in the quarry at Rockland Lake when 13 were killed and many were injured.
She became to famed in the county as an obstetrician and a diagnostician, only two months ago delivering her last baby. She believe firmly in mothers having their babies at home, leaving the hospitals to the sick. At home, she argued, mothers found a more wholesome atmosphere and the comfort their husbands could give them.
She drove her own car
Dr. Davies started out making her calls by horse and buggy. When she was 62, she learned to drive a car which she continued to use for her rounds until she was 81. At that time as she was making a sick call, a speeding bus crashed into her car. The doctor's report of her injuries said: "Serious concussion, four broken ribs, right arm broken at shoulder socket, left leg broken in two places, right knee cap shattered.
Five weeks later she was seeing patients right in the Nyack Hospital where she herself was a patient. In another four weeks she came home.
Two days after she was home a state trooper arrived at her bedside with the victim of an automobile accident. When the trooper was taken to task by members of Dr. Davies family, the trooper replied: "Couldn't help myself. She threatened to jump straight out of the car if I didn't take her straight to Dr. Davies. Dr. Davies sick is better than most doctors well she insisted."
On the evening of September [24?], 1944, when the hurricane of that year swept in Rockland county, a car stopped at 9 o'clock that evening at the darkened Davies farmhouse, all lights in the county being out because the storm, and telephone wires down. A frightened man appeared at the door demanding the doctor. His wife, he said, was about to have a baby. Off Dr. Davies went, and the baby was born by lamplight.
In farming, Dr. Davies came gave particular interest to the culture of strawberries, lima beans, and the planting of orchards. She liked people to appreciate her produce. Wives came to know that if they asked Dr. Davies to come to treat their husbands, for a pain, she might take her time, but that she would be sure to come if they said their husbands were longing for a pie made of her Northern Spies and then added, as aside "Bring your stethoscope."
Botanist also
She knew the botanical names of all flowers and trees and loved to gather fringed gentians, Indian pipes, mushrooms. As late as last year she went to gather thimble berries in Crumble's glen.
As she grew older people had made much of her, she was such a remarkable and loveable person. When they sang "Happy Birthday to You," she found pleasure in the fact it had been written by her cousin Patti Smith Hill, professor of education at Columbia.
In 1945 she appeared on the program, "Never Too Old," a program featuring unusual elderly people. In 1946 she appeared on Mary Margaret McBride's program on her birthday. Fred Waring also appeared that day and Dr. Davies was forced to admit she had never heard of him.
Surviving Dr. Davies are her son, Niles M. Davies, president of the Rockland County Farm Bureau; her grandsons, Niles M. Davies, Jr., and Allen D. Davies (an engineer at R. C. A.), Arthur Bowen Davies, a student at Cornell; her granddaughters, Sylvia Ann Davies, who graduates this year from Mt. Holyoke and is to attend Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons next year; Margaret M. Davies, a senior at Middlebury. A second son, A. David Davies, died a few years ago.
Also surviving are two nieces, Miss Rostand (sic) Betts of Memphis, Tenn., and Mrs. Bert Fielding of Cardova, Tenn., two grandnephews, Niles Fargason of Nyack, flautist with NBC, and David Fargason of Memphis, Tenn.
Funeral services will be held at Gracie Episcopal Church, Nyack, at 2:30 o'clock Saturday afternoon. Interment will be at the convenience of the family.
Friends are asked to omit flowers. It is been suggested that if they wish to remember Dr. Davies, it would be her wish that they contribute to the fund for the hospital at Echternach, Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, through a Thursday Class fund in Nyack.
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Note: N1879 Virginia M. Davies
New York Times (New York, New York), 22 April 1949
Virginia M. Davies, A Physician at 87
Rockland County Practitioner Who Received Degree in '86 Dies
Widow of Artist
Special to the New York Times
Congers, N.Y., April 21
Dr. Virginia Meriwether Davies said to have been the oldest practicing woman physician in the State, died in her home here today of thrombosis at the age of 87. She had practiced until her illness three weeks ago.
Dr. Davies was the widow of Arthur B. Davies, whose paintings are hung in the Metropolitan Museum of Art and other museums. He had been president of the American Painters and Sculptors Society. Her husband died in 1928.
Dr. Davies was a descendant of Nicholas Meriwether, who from 1652-1664 received a grant of 17,000 acres in and around Westmoreland County, Va., from King Charles II in payment of a loan. She was also descended from Meriwether Lewis, of the Lewis and Clark Expedition.
Dr. Davies attended the First Seminary in Huntsville, Ala., the Mary Baldwin School in Staunton, Va., and, after studying with private tutors, was graduated from the Medical College of the New York Infirmary in 1886.
For four years she was head of the New York Infant Asylum, and in the blizzard of 1888 she led a group who tunneled through an 18-foot snowdrift to get milk after supplies had been cut off for two days.
In 1892 she decided to retire from practice and she and her husband came here to run a farm that had been a wedding present. The farm was four miles from the Haverstraw Brick Yard, near several large stone quarries, and less than a mile from the headquarters of the Knickerbocker Ice Company. There were many accidents at the plants, and when it became known that Mrs. Davies was a physician she was pressed into service and soon developed a large practice.
Surviving are a son, Niles M. Davies, who operates a large fruit and vegetable farm here and is president of the Rockland County Farm Bureau, and five grandchildren.
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