"Emily Walker." The Capital, 11 July 2007.

Emily Walker

Dr. Emily Cumming Hammond Wilson Walker, who spent her medical career taking care of south county patients from 1929 to 1982, died July 10 at Spa Creek Center Genesis HealthCare. She was 103.

Dr. Walker was born July 8, 1904, at Redcliffe Plantation, in Beech Island, S.C., built in 1859 by her great-grandfather, James Henry Hammond, a former U.S. senator and governor of South Carolina at the time of the Civil War.

She attended Mount St. Agnes School in Baltimore, St. Genevieve's School in Asheville, N.C., and Goucher College. She graduated from the Medical College of Georgia in 1927, the only woman in her class and the second to graduate from the school.

After a year of internship at the Central Georgia Railroad Hospital in Savannah, Ga., she got a position in the clinic at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore. In July 1929 she was given a chance to establish a practice as a country doctor in Anne Arundel County. Due to initial reluctance of people to be seen by a female doctor, her first patient was a dog who had been hit by a car.

In April 1932 she married John Fletcher Wilson and moved her medical office to their family farm in Lothian. In 1947 they purchased Obligation Farm, a historic property in Harwood which is still owned by the Wilson family.

There were only two paved roads in south county at the time she began her practice, requiring her to make some calls on horseback. She charged $1 for an office visit and delivered babies at home for $15.

Although initially denied admission to the staff of the hospital in Annapolis and to the county medical society, she became president of the society and chief of staff at the former Anne Arundel General Hospital in 1951. She was a pioneer in establishing clinics to treat syphilis and for pre-natal care. She is credited in diagnosing the first case of tick fever in Maryland.

She was given a retirement party after 50 years of practice but continued working until 1982, retiring at the age of 78.

Mr. Wilson died in 1952. In 1974 she married A.T. Walker whom she had known since she was 17. He died in 1988.

Survivors include two sons, John F. Wilson Jr. and Christopher H. Wilson, both of the family farm in Harwood; one brother, Christopher Hammond of Savannah; one sister, Mary Bruceof Clemson, S.C.; and two grandchildren.

Visitation will be at Obligation Farm from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. Friday. A memorial Mass will be offered at 10 a.m. Saturday at Our Lady of Sorrows Catholic Church, 101 Owensville Road, West River. Burial will be in the family cemetery at Redcliffe Plantation.

In lieu of flowers, memorial contributions may be made to Anne Arundel Medical Center, Sajak Pavillion, Suite 240, 2001 Medical Parkway, Annapolis, MD 21401 or the Shady Side Rural Heritage Society Inc., 1418 East West Shady Side Road, Shady Side, MD 20764.