Thursday Night Genealogical Society Meeting
Will Feature Program on
"Early, Female Physician"

 

From Marynell Bryant

 

Ruth Karbach, author and professional researcher from Fort Worth, will present a program about “Ellen Lawson Dabbs, female physician of Sulphur Springs” for the Hopkins County Genealogical Society meeting Thursday, Nov. 18. The group will meet at 7 p.m. at the HCGS Research Library on Main Street.

 

Karbach has researched the life of this early political activist and physician for a chapter in a book on Texas women to be published in 2011 by the University of Georgia Press. This talk will also give a glimpse into late 19th century life in Sulphur Springs.

 

A member of the Texas Christian University Press planning team for “Grace and Gumption: Stories of Fort Worth Women”, Karbach wrote two chapters on progressive era women for that book. She was also a contributor to “Celebrating 150 Years, a Pictorial History of Fort Worth” and is currently completing a history of Fort Worth’s First Christian Church for the Sacred Places Program of the National Historic Trust.

 

An honors graduate of the University of Texas at Arlington, Karbach has had careers in the social work and history museum fields. As a juvenile probation officer, she pursued graduate studies in criminology at Sam Houston State University. In Fort Worth she was a social worker at a children home, a shelter for homeless families and Tarrant County Child Welfare. She was named Child Welfare Worker of the Year for her achievements as an adoption specialist.

 

Karbach’s history museum career started with directing an oral history project for the Southwest Collection at Texas Tech. After serving seven years as curator of Thistle Hill, a historic house museum, she worked for the National Cowgirl Museum and Hall of Fame as a researcher and writer.

 

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