Part of the American History & Genealogy Project

Letitia Dowdell Ross

Mrs. Letitia Dowdell Ross, the newly elected president of the Alabama Division of the United Daughters of the Confederacy, is the daughter of the late William Crawford Dowdell, of Auburn, Alabama. Her mother was Elizabeth Thomas Dowdell, a woman prominent and influential in the foreign missionary work of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South and for thirty years president of the Woman's Foreign Missionary Society of Alabama. Mrs. Ross is a niece of the late Colonel James F. Dowdell, who commanded the Thirty-seventh Regiment, Confederate States of America, and for several years before the war was a member of Congress from the East Alabama district. She is also a first cousin of Chief Justice Dowdell, of the Supreme Court, and of the late Governor William J. Samford, of Alabama.

Mrs. Ross was given the best educational advantages at home and abroad, having spent some time in Germany as a student, later becoming the wife of B. B. Ross, professor of chemistry in the Alabama Polytechnic Institute and chemist for the state of Alabama. Her husband's work has brought Mrs. Ross into close connection with educational work. She has always taken an active interest in all movements looking to the benefit of the young men of the institutions with which her husband is connected.

She enters with interest and enthusiasm into the literary and social life of her home town and is greatly admired for her intelligence and her many amiable and womanly qualities. Mrs. Ross has been prominently associated with the United Daughters of the Confederacy work since the organization of the Admiral Semmes Chapter, of Auburn, and was for several terms its president She has also held the positions of recording secretary and first vice-president in the state division and frequently has been a delegate to the general convention, United Daughters of the Confederacy. Mrs. Ross is also an active member of the Daughters of the American Revolution.

Women of America

Source: The Part Taken by Women in American History, By Mrs. John A. Logan, Published by The Perry-Nalle Publishing Company, Wilmington, Delaware, 1912.