An elementary school in Newburg, Maryland, was dedicated in memory of Dr. Thomas Lawson Higdon in 1989. Below is an excerpt from the Washington Post, dated June 29, 1989:
Thomas Lawson Higdon was born on a farm called Planter's Delight, in Pisgah, Maryland, on Feb. 18, 1868. He was just 2 1/2 and an only child when his mother died during childbirth. His father, a Civil War veteran, taught school and raised tobacco, corn and a few cattle. He never remarried.
Higdon attended grade school in Charles County, and in 1889 he graduated from Charlotte Hall Military Academy. He taught school in Charles and Prince George's counties for several years, trying to save enough money to go to medical school. His son, Thomas Jr., said he believes Higdon always wanted to be a doctor. "I think it had something to do with his mother's early death," he said.
In 1897, Higdon received a medical degree from Baltimore University medical school.
At first, the doctor treated patients at Pleasant View, the home he shared with his wife, Ella, and his three children, Dorothy, Thomas Jr., and Eleanor. Later he built a small office several hundred yards from the house to protect his family as much from disease as from the profanity that spewed from the mouths of Saturday night patients, usually victims of stabbings incurred during drunken brawls.
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