LAPHAM, ALMA ANN (1853-1932)

LAPHAM, ALMA ANN, doctor; b. Saint John, 19 Sep 1853, d/o Bradford F. Lapham and Elizabeth Coates; m. 1882, Francis S. Williston, s/o Edward Williston and Sarah Jane Mignowitz; d. Philipsburg, Pa, 6 May 1932.

Alma A. Lapham's father was a fish merchant in Saint John, and she received her schooling there. In the mid 1870s, when the fish preserving industry was booming on the Miramichi, her father moved to Lower Newcastle and became a canner of spiced salmon for the overseas market.

One of the first New Brunswick women to qualify as a physician, Lapham studied under Dr Alfred C. Smith in Newcastle, and subsequently at the Women's Medical College in Philadelphia (MD 1881). She spent a year in practice on the Miramichi before marrying Francis S. Williston and moving with him to the United States. Her husband was a Methodist minister, and they followed their respective careers at several locations in New England. They later settled permanently in Philipsburg, Pa.

For many years Lapham was the town physician and medical inspector in Philipsburg. She was a supporter of the anti-tuberculosis and temperance movements. She and her husband had two sons and a daughter.