{"id":23388,"date":"2022-03-04T09:43:13","date_gmt":"2022-03-04T15:43:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www2.baylor.edu\/baylorproud\/?p=23388"},"modified":"2023-07-14T10:14:17","modified_gmt":"2023-07-14T15:14:17","slug":"wacos-first-licensed-female-physician-a-three-time-baylor-grad-dr-hallie-earle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www2.baylor.edu\/baylorproud\/2022\/03\/wacos-first-licensed-female-physician-a-three-time-baylor-grad-dr-hallie-earle\/","title":{"rendered":"Waco&#8217;s first licensed female physician? A three-time Baylor grad, Dr. Hallie Earle"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-23389\" src=\"https:\/\/www2.baylor.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/earle-mar22.jpg\" alt=\"Three photographs of Hallie Earle\" width=\"600\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www2.baylor.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/earle-mar22.jpg 1200w, https:\/\/www2.baylor.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/earle-mar22-300x150.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www2.baylor.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/earle-mar22-1024x512.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www2.baylor.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/earle-mar22-768x384.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>In 2013, <a href=\"https:\/\/www2.baylor.edu\/baylorproud\/2013\/06\/east-village-building-names-honor-prominent-baylor-engineer-and-doctor\/\">Baylor Regents approved &#8220;Hallie Earle Hall&#8221;<\/a> as the name for the southern part of what would debut that fall as East Village. Since then, thousands of Bears have lived in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baylor.edu\/cll\/index.php?id=983969\">the building<\/a> &#8212; but to many, &#8220;Earle&#8221; is still a new name in Baylor history.<\/p>\n<p>So let&#8217;s answer the question: Who was Hallie Earle?<\/p>\n<p>A nearly lifelong Central Texan, Earle was born on a ranch just outside Waco in 1880. She enrolled at Baylor at age 17, served as senior class secretary, and took as many math and science classes as possible &#8212; earning the nickname &#8220;Dr. Earle&#8221; even as an undergraduate. She\u00a0graduated from Baylor with her bachelor&#8217;s of science in 1901, and added a master&#8217;s of science from BU a year later. (A copy of her thesis is presumably still <a href=\"https:\/\/www.tshaonline.org\/handbook\/entries\/earle-hallie\">in the cornerstone of Carroll Science Building<\/a>, having been placed there while the now-classic building was under construction.)<\/p>\n<p>Earle taught school in Gainesville, Texas (north of Fort Worth), for three years before entering Baylor College of Medicine in Dallas. For many years, she held the school&#8217;s record for highest GPA, and she <a href=\"https:\/\/wacotrib.com\/news\/local\/brazos-past-wacos-1st-female-physician\/article_1956cd6d-602d-5b30-99f3-0cca2e15d222.html\">became its first female graduate<\/a>\u00a0in 1907.<\/p>\n<p>After postgraduate work and internships in Chicago, New Orleans and New York, Dr. Earle worked for a few years at a sanitarium in Marlin (30 miles outside Waco). She returned to Waco in 1915 and established a private obstetrics and internal medicine practice, becoming <a href=\"https:\/\/wacotrib.com\/news\/local\/brazos-past-wacos-1st-female-physician\/article_1956cd6d-602d-5b30-99f3-0cca2e15d222.html\">Waco&#8217;s first licensed female physician<\/a>. Her office was in the city&#8217;s famous ALICO building. She would serve in that role for more than three decades, until her retirement in 1948 (at which time she was still one of only a handful of female doctors in the area).<\/p>\n<p>Medicine was Earle&#8217;s career, but it wasn&#8217;t her only interest. She also loved studying weather, and was named a Cooperative Weather Observer by the U.S. government in 1916 due to her comprehensive weather observation journals. In 1960, the United States Weather Bureau honored her for her decades of service.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/digitalcollections-baylor.quartexcollections.com\/Documents\/Detail\/the-baylor-line-waco-texas-vol.-26-no.-1-january-february-1964\/1513776?item=1513811\">Earle passed away<\/a> in 1963, and is buried in Waco&#8217;s Oakwood Cemetery; her gravesite includes <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hmdb.org\/m.asp?m=178231\">a Texas Historical Commission marker<\/a>, placed in 1996.<\/p>\n<p>Today, <a href=\"https:\/\/baylor.primo.exlibrisgroup.com\/discovery\/fulldisplay?docid=alma991022993889705576&amp;context=L&amp;vid=01BUL_INST:BAYLOR&amp;search_scope=MyInst_and_CI&amp;tab=Everything&amp;lang=en\">her family&#8217;s papers<\/a> (including Earle&#8217;s weather journals, and a daily diary she kept from 1895-1963) are part of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baylor.edu\/library\/index.php?id=973374\">Baylor&#8217;s Texas Collection<\/a>. And of course, her legacy lives on in Earle Hall &#8212; fittingly, home to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baylor.edu\/shllc\/\">Baylor&#8217;s Science and Health Living Learning Center<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Sic \u2019em, Dr. Earle!<\/p>\n<p><strong><em>Other residence hall name histories:<\/em><\/strong><br \/>\n<em>* <a href=\"https:\/\/www2.baylor.edu\/baylorproud\/2023\/03\/who-was-gladys-allen-namesake-of-baylors-allen-hall\/\">Allen<\/a> (Gladys Allen)<br \/>\n* <a href=\"https:\/\/www2.baylor.edu\/baylorproud\/2018\/12\/samuel-palmer-brooks-the-baylor-legend-behind-the-immortal-message\/\">Brooks<\/a> (Samuel Palmer Brooks)<\/em><br \/>\n<em>* <a href=\"https:\/\/www2.baylor.edu\/baylorproud\/2023\/07\/who-was-ruth-collins-namesake-of-baylors-collins-hall\/\">Collins<\/a> (Ruth Collins)<\/em><br \/>\n<em>* Dawson (Willie Turner Dawson)<\/em><br \/>\n<em>* <a href=\"https:\/\/www2.baylor.edu\/baylorproud\/2018\/07\/who-was-kokernot-hall-named-for\/\">Kokernot<\/a> (H.L. Kokernot)<\/em><br \/>\n<em>* <a href=\"https:\/\/www2.baylor.edu\/baylorproud\/2016\/08\/who-was-martin-hall-named-for\/\">Martin<\/a> (D.K. &#8220;Dock&#8221; Martin)<\/em><br \/>\n<em>* <a href=\"https:\/\/www2.baylor.edu\/baylorproud\/2015\/08\/who-was-penland-hall-named-for\/\">Penland<\/a> (George Harvey Penland)<\/em><br \/>\n<em>* <a href=\"https:\/\/www2.baylor.edu\/baylorproud\/2019\/07\/who-was-russell-hall-named-for\/\">Russell<\/a> (Willard &amp; Stella Russell)<\/em><br \/>\n<em>* <a href=\"https:\/\/www2.baylor.edu\/baylorproud\/2009\/02\/alums-invention-led-to-modern-age-of-technology\/\">Teal<\/a> (Gordon Teal)<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In 2013, Baylor Regents approved &#8220;Hallie Earle Hall&#8221; as the name for the southern part of what would debut that fall as East Village. Since then, thousands of Bears have lived in the building &#8212; but to many, &#8220;Earle&#8221; is still a new name in Baylor history. So let&#8217;s answer the question: Who was Hallie [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,7,20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23388","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-alumni","category-extraordinary-stories","category-history"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www2.baylor.edu\/baylorproud\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23388","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www2.baylor.edu\/baylorproud\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www2.baylor.edu\/baylorproud\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www2.baylor.edu\/baylorproud\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www2.baylor.edu\/baylorproud\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23388"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www2.baylor.edu\/baylorproud\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23388\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www2.baylor.edu\/baylorproud\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23388"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www2.baylor.edu\/baylorproud\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23388"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www2.baylor.edu\/baylorproud\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23388"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}