Eugenia Tucker Fitzgerald

Fitzgerald was born in Laurens County, Georgia, January 29, 1834. At the time of her birth, her mother, Anne Horn Tucker, was 23 and her father, Nathan Tucker, was 35. He was a successful medical doctor in the county. Fitzgerald had three sisters and one brother.

Fitzgerald's father provided governesses for childhood schooling for her and her siblings since there were no adequate public schools available in their rural area. The female tutors were from the Northern states. One had a radical outlook and caused problems among the household servants. She was dismissed from her duties. The Tucker family lived in a large house that had a library. Fitzgerald and her brother were then sent to a small town near Milledgeville, Georgia, for further education. They entered an academy and later a college there. Her brother went on to Princeton University in New Jersey. Fitzgerald went on to Wesleyan Female College in Macon. She graduated as valedictorian of her senior class in 1852.

Fitzgerald was first married to Judge Arthur E. Cochran in Glynn County, Georgia on July 3, 1853, when she was 19 years old. They lived in Macon. The judge was a widower and had a son whom she helped rear until he was able to be on his own. Judge Cochran died in 1854. In 1862 she married Dr. Edmund Fitzgerald. He was a widower with a daughter, Caroline ("Carrie"). After Dr. Fitzgerald died in 1887, Fitzgerald and Carrie moved from Macon to Washington, D.C. There Carrie married Captain A. F. Lucas, a successful civil engineer in the oil industry. Fitzgerald lived there with her stepdaughter and new husband for many years and eventually moved to Fort Worth, Texas.

In 1851 Fitzgerald became one of the founders of the first woman's secret society established in a girls' college. The sorority, founded at Wesleyan Female College in Macon, had six charter members. It was originally called the Adelphean Society and later changed its name to Alpha Delta Pi Sorority. Fitzgerald was its first president.

Fitzgerald spent her last 18 years with her niece in Fort Worth. She died there on December 10, 1928, and was buried in Oakwood Cemetery. Her body was disinterred in 1933 and brought to Macon's Rose Hill Cemetery where she was buried next to Dr. Fitzgerald.