Named after doctor

My grandfather was Rawls Coston Bowen. He was often called "Shorty". I have often wondered where the Rawls Coston name came from. His son was named Rawls Coston Bowen, Jr. He was called R.C. 

Rawls was born in 1889 in Lincoln County, Tn. In those days it was often a practice to name a child for the doctor who delivered it. Today I searched and found that in fact, there was a Dr. Hamilton Ralls Coston who was born in 1866. He attended Vanderbilt University in Nashville, TN. He graduated in 1889 and practiced his first few years in Fayetteville, Lincoln County, Tn.

I believe in his first year of practice he probably delivered Rawls Coston Bowen who was given the doctor's name.

The Coston name also endures in the name of my brother John Coston Rasmussen.

Here is the text of Dr. Coston's obituary:

Funeral services for Dr. H. R. Coston, 79, for 30 years before his retirment a practicing physician in Birmingham, will be held at 11 a. m. tomorrow in the Brown-Service, Norwood, Chapel, the Rev. O. Fred Cooper, pastor of the Norwood Church, officiating, with burial in Elmwood Cemetery.

Dr. Coston died January 31 at the Alexan Rest Resort in Signal Mountain, Tennessee, where he had resided a year. He was a graduate of Vanderbilt University, class of 1889, a member of Zamora Temple, and of the Norwood Methodist Church.

Dr. Coston was a native of Lincoln County, Tennessee, having been born in Mulberry on August 24, 1866. He married Rose Caughran, who died in 1941. He practiced for the first few years after graduation from Vanderbilt here in Fayetteville.

In addition to his son here in Fayetteville, Dr. Ralls M. Coston, he is survived by two daughters, Miss Eunice Coston, Atlanta, and Lieut. Mary Coston, WAC Fort Lewis, Washington; another son, James M. Coston, Atlanta, and four grandchildren.

Source:

Lincoln County News

Fayetteville, Tennessee

Thursday, February 7, 1946