HOLCOMBE, Mrs. Elizabeth J., physician,
was born 19th August, 1827. She is related on the
side of her maternal grandmother to Elias Hicks,
the founder of the Unitarian branch of the Society
of Friends. In her third year she was sent to school
and at fifteen was a teacher, receiving a dollar a
week and feeling very rich. After graduating from
the State Normal School in Albany, N. Y., she
became the wife of Dr. J. W. Justin, a young phy-
sician of promise and enthusiasm. While readin
to him from his favorite authors, she first deriv
that ion for the study of medicine which led
her, after his early death, to devote to it all her
spare time. Her two children had to be provided for,
and for fourteen years she filled the position of pre-
ceptress in the union free school and academy in
Newark, N. Y. While there an urgent appeal came
to her to transfer her connection to the Elmira high
school, with the promise of a much larger income.
The Newark board of education refused to accept
her resignation, and offered to double her salary if
she would remain. In 1864 she became the wife of
Rev. Chester Holcombe, the father of the Hon.
Chester Holcombe, late secretary of legation to
China. After the death of her second husband and
at the age of forty, she began in earnest the profes-
sional study of medicine. After her graduation
from the Woman's Medical College in Philadelphia,
she was appointed resident physician to the
Woman's Hospital, filling, at the same time, the
position of lecturer in the training school for
nurses. There she remained three years. She
then entered upon a private practice in Syra-
cuse, N. Y., where her daughter, who had be-
come the wife of Rev. George Thomas Dowling,
pastor of the Central Baptist Church of that city,
resided. Soon after that her son, Dr. Joel Justin,
joined her, having graduated from the University of Pennsylvania and acquired, as the result of a post-graduate course, the degree of Ph.D. For a time he, too, practiced medicine, being connected
ELIZABETH J. HOLCOMBE.
with the College of Physicians and Surgeons, in Syracuse University, first as instructor in chemistry and afterward as professor of medical jurisprudence. He has since become widely known as the inventor of the Justin dynamite shell, and has surrendered his medical practice to become president of the company which bears his name. Mrs. Holcombe has made her home in Syracuse for the last seventeen years.