Dooly-Houston-Jones County GaArchives Biographies.....Bivins, Thomas Franklin 1862 - living in 1913
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Joy Fisher http://www.genrecords.net/emailregistry/vols/00001.html#0000031 October 31, 2004, 4:37 pm

Author: William Harden
p. 1014-1016

   DR. THOMAS FRANKLIN BIVINS has been in active practice in Vienna, Dooly
county, Georgia, for more than twenty years. This statement is almost enough to
call to the vision of people just what sort of a man Doctor Bivins is, for when
a man occupying his position of family counselor and friend to people for a
period of twenty years, remains in the same place during this time, he must be
of a noble character, and of a sincere heart, else his clientele would have
found him out long ago. We all admire and exclaim over the wonderful feats of
the surgeons in our great hospitals, and of those medical investigators who are
continually announcing remarkable discoveries from their laboratories; do we
ever think that the practitioner in the small town or city runs just as great
risks and has practically as great a number of calls upon his nerve force as has
the city surgeon? In the first place what work could be more taxing than a
general practice, where the physician does not have to know everything about
something, but what is much more impossible, something about everything'. Again
when he has a critical case the patient is not simply a human being whose life
must be saved but as a rule some one whom he has known for years so he has the
same strain on his nerves that he would have if he were operating upon one of
his own family. It is this type of hero that Doctor Bivins is, though he,
himself, very likely, would never think of himself as doing anything but his duty.

   Doctor Thomas Franklin Bivins was born on the 13th of September, 1862, at
Haynesville, in Houston county, Georgia. He was the son of Franklin Ward Bivins,
whose birthplace was in Jones county, Georgia. Franklin Bivins had the
opportunity of giving his service to the cause he thought was right, and of
becoming one of that splendid body of men, the veterans of the army of the
Confederacy. He was a private soldier in a company of infantry, and after the
war was over he returned to his plantation and set to work to build up again his
shattered fortune. His wife was Betzy Blackshear Walker, a daughter of a Mr.
Walker, a planter of Houston county, Georgia. The father of Franklin Ward Bivins
was Stephen Bivins, who was a native of Maryland. He came with his family to
Jones county, Georgia, when only a small lad, so the family has been closely
identified with the state for a long time. Dr. Bivins has one brother, Stephen
Fillmore Bivins, who is a planter in Houston county, Georgia. His sisters number
four: Mrs. Ella Tiguin, who is the wife of Samuel Tiguin, of El Paso, Texas;
Betzy Bivins, who lives in Macon, Georgia; Mrs. Georgia Baskin, who is the wife
of J. D. Baskin, of Moultrie, Georgia, a farmer; Mary W., who married C. E.
Mathis of Macon, Georgia, her husband being a locomotive engineer.

   Dr. Thomas Franklin Bivins grew up on his father's farm, helping with the
work of the place and attending the near-by school. He early determined upon his
future profession, for even as a boy he saw the need of a good doctor in all the
country communities through the South. There was a dearth of physicians, just as
there was a dearth of everything else. When he was about sixteen he began to
attend the country high school, and from that time he was so busy with his books
that he had no time for anything else. After finishing his high school work, he
attended the Louisville Medical College, in Louisville, Kentucky, and here he
was graduated, with the degree of M. D. in 1886.

   True to his determination the young doctor returned to the state of his
birth, bent on goving his services to help the people among whom he had been
reared. This was no small sacrifice for the young man for he realized the
opportunities to advance himself in his profession would be very few. While he
had been in college lie had been in constant contact with the leaders in his
profession, and now he would have to struggle along by himself with neither the
inspiration or the wise counsel that they could have given him, had he gone for
example into hospital work in Louisville. However, if his career was not to be
as brilliant as it might have been had he remained in the city, he was to
receive a training and experience that would broaden his character and give him
an insight into the real problems of this complex life such as no hospital
practice could have done. He was to learn the souls of men, and to go through
trials and tribulations with his people, as he would never have had the
opportunity to do as a hospital physician. He first located in Eureka, in Dooly
county, Georgia. After remaining here for five years he moved to Vienna, in the
same county, and here he has been in practice ever since. His practice is
general, and that means that he has to cover many miles a day, through every
sort of weather, but he never falters, and his reward is in the devotion of the
people whom he has served so well and so faithfully. Who shall not say that
friends are better than fame.

   Dr. Bivins married Mary E. Gammage, a daughter of James M. and Winnifred
(Lock) Gammage. She was also a native of Georgia, Lawrence county being her
birthplace. Dr. Bivins is a member of the Masonic order, and the A. A. 0. N. M.
S., and he also belongs to the Knights of Pythias, and to the Odd Fellows. Both
Dr. Bivins and his wife are members of the Baptist church in Vienna, Georgia.



Additional Comments:
From:

A HISTORY OF SAVANNAH AND SOUTH GEORGIA
BY
WILLIAM HARDEN

VOLUME II
ILLUSTRATED
THE LEWIS PUBLISHING COMPANY
CHICAGO AND NEW YORK
1913

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