Southern Appalachian Digital Collections

Western Carolina University (21) View all

Dr. Daisy Zachary McGuire with daughter, Noracella Elizabeth McGuire

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  • This 1915 photograph shows Dr. Daisy Zachary McGuire (1880-1980) with her first-born child Noracella Elizabeth McGuire. Daisy became the first licensed female dentist in North Carolina when she graduated in 1908 from Southern Dental College in Atlanta. She practiced dentistry with her husband Wayne McGuire in Sylva, and was the oldest practicing dentist in the nation when she retired in 1977 at the age of 97. Noracella graduated from Southern Dental in 1938 and entered her parent’s practice. She married husband Thomas Corsey Wilson, a dental laboratory technician, in 1945.