Editor’s note: What’s in a name? Zac Lentz Parkway, the Leo J. Welder Center for the Performing Arts, Ethel Lee Tracy Park, Dr. Pattie Dodson Public Health Center. This is the first in a series of articles exploring the story behind the names.
She once wrestled a string of fish from the mouth of an alligator.
“You’re not taking my sons’ fish,” she spit at the gator. Her sons had fished a while to get that full string, and get it, they would.
Dr. Pattie Dodson’s children shared this story about their mother with a laugh. The alligator lost that tug of war.
“That was mom. She was a fighter,” they said.
After caring for Victoria residents as a pediatrician in private practice for over 20 years, Dodson became the director of the Victoria City-County Health Department and the Crossroads Health District in 1974.
Dodson served in that capacity with renowned tenacity and skill, until she retired in 1995.
What Victoria County Court-at-Law No. 2 Judge Daniel Gilliam remembers most of all about his mother, however, are the mysteries.
Mysteries were his favorite sort of bedtime stories, and his mom had a way of letting him know, even though she was “pulled in many directions,” he said. The time between the two of them, just before she laid him to sleep for the night, was special.
His older brother remembers she saw patients outside of her regular schedule, at their home. Children who developed an earache overnight were brought with confidence on Saturday mornings to the family’s back door.
She never turned them away, Robert Gilliam, a retired ophthalmologist, said.
Her surviving daughter, Jane Helm, of Corpus Christi, remembers her mother’s strength.
“She was way ahead of her time. She had a pioneering spirit,” Helm said. “Women were expected in the 1950s, after the war, to go home and take care of their families. That was not her. She had an extreme fighting spirit for anyone in need.”
Dodson was a devoted mom to her four children — a mom who cared for many Victorians for over 40 years as well, affectionately remembered and simply known as “Dr. Pattie.”
The State of Texas remembered her after she died in 1997 with Senate Resolution No. 877, which says, in part, “A woman of integrity, strength, compassion, and generosity. Dr. Dodson gave unselfishly of her time to others and to her community, and her wisdom, warmth, and valued counsel will not be forgotten.”
Victoria honored her memory, having forever affixed her name to the place she brought into being and championed throughout her career, her children said — the Dr. Pattie Dodson Public Health Center.
Dodson’s story is told in Volume I of “The History and Heritage of Victoria County,” on hand at the Victoria Regional History Center. Her children carry and transmit her story, too.
Dodson was born in Refugio County on May 18, 1921. Her father was a doctor and the town of Woodsboro’s first mayor.
She graduated as valedictorian of Woodsboro High School in 1937 and went on to graduate from the University of Texas-Austin in 1941, with honors, including that of “Outstanding Woman.”
She received her medical degree from the University of Texas-Galveston in 1945. She graduated in the top 10% of her class. She married R.B. Gilliam, a veteran of World War II, in 1944, and then went on to intern in Minnesota.
In 1953, Dodson and her husband moved to Victoria and set up a pediatrics practice. They cared for area children for 21 years, then, in 1974, Dodson became the director of the Victoria City-County Health Department and the Crossroads Health District.
“During her tenure as director, she established the maternity and family planning center that is now The University of Texas Medical Branch’s Regional Maternity Health Center of Victoria,” the senate resolution said. “She also created the county’s HIV program and expanded public health programs throughout her community.”
She expanded the WIC program and services of Home Health.
“She was always courageously fighting for money for health programs,” Helm said. “The last thing she ever cared about was whether someone could pay a bill or not. The health department was the perfect place for her. She fought for the people.”
Her health departments were the best in the state, according to “The History and Heritage of Victoria County,” so much so that departments from other areas were referred to her for training and consultation.
Dodson was the recipient of many awards and a member of several civic organizations. As told in “Heritage of Victoria County,” she was an advocate for women.
“Throughout her life, she expanded the role of women by example as well as support of women in positions of professionalism and leadership for which she received the South Texas Woman Award in 1994,” the passage read.
She was awarded a Points of Light Award by President George H. Bush as well as a Yellow Rose Plaque by former Gov. Ann Richards.
“I think that what I see is how easy the path became for women,” Helm said. “My mom was a pioneer. She had to fight. I have never felt a door shut in my face. My mom started out watching her dad — a horse and buggy doctor — do surgeries on people’s kitchen tables. She was such a great doctor and so ahead of her times. She cared for everyone.”
Dodson learned that the new health center would bear her name a month before she died on April 2, 1997, Helm said, adding that she was glad “mom knew.” The health center was named in Dodson’s honor in December 1998.
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