Susan Dimock. For some, it’s a name that draws up a vague recollection; for others, the name is not familiar at all. Dimock was born and raised in Washington; she became a beloved figure in Boston. Now author Susan Wilson has set out to write Dimock’s story, from her growing up in the Lafayette Hotel, owned by her mother, Mary Melvina Owens Dimock, on East Main Street, to her tragic death in a shipwreck off the coast of Cornwall in 1875.

Wilson recently traveled to Washington seeking information for a book she’s writing about the respected physician. Wilson and Dimock’s own history reaches back in time: more than 20 years ago, Wilson ran across the story of Dimock’s death while doing research as a freelance writer for the Boston Globe. For 18 years, she traced Boston history for the Globe — stories she thought would appeal to people both in and outside of the city.

“I would go out and find interesting stories about Boston history,” Wilson said.

But Dimock’s story made an impression, largely because every newspaper in the city ran multiple stories about her death in 1875, some even debating whether she was, in fact, dead or alive, much as tabloids do today when a particularly famous person dies. Friends paid to have Dimock’s body shipped home; grand memorial services were held; donations to the New England Hospital for Women and Children were made in her honor; in fact, the hospital purchased the plot in Forest Hills Cemetery in Boston where Dimock was laid to rest.

“The town was in mourning. It was in very serious mourning,” Wilson said.

Dimock was, Wilson has learned from letters, an apparently brilliant woman who was not only intelligent, but personable and beautiful — a woman who inspired others to send her to medical school in Zurich with the understanding she would come back to be New England Hospital’s resident physician and chief surgeon.

“She was at the top of her class. … Everybody loved her. They loved her as a human being, just gentle, kind. … She was considered one of the finest surgeons in Boston, male, female or otherwise,” Wilson said. “She was just a really hard worker, really cared about other people, everyone who met her was impressed by her intellect, her character and her beauty.”

“I just got wrapped up in the story,” Wilson said.

The story led Wilson to Forest Hills Cemetery, where she discovered the marble headstone on Dimock’s grave had been eroded by acid rain. She drew on a community of historians and friends to raise money to recreate the headstone in granite — a more impervious stone — and through Washington connections, coordinated a move of the original headstone to St. Peter’s Episcopal Church Cemetery, where Dimock’s father, Henry Dimock, is buried.

Two years ago, and two decades later, Wilson was asked to do a lecture with the director of the Dimock Center (originally the New England Hospital for Women and Children, still operating as a medical facility today) about Susan Dimock. Afterward, several audience members asked Wilson about buying the book—there was no book, which got Wilson thinking: “Who’s going to do it if I don’t do it?”

An application to Brandeis University’s Women’s Studies Research Center later and Wilson was accepted as a visiting scholar; her project, a book about Susan Dimock.

“As of September, I am there, working on the project,” Wilson said, adding that while she’s authored other books, this is the first time she’s gone out on her own to write a book. “This is sheer love and, really, the renewed love in the whole Susan Dimock story.”

Wilson is asking Beaufort County residents to help her gather all existing knowledge about Dimock — the circumstances in which she grew up; the circumstances under which she left during the Civil War. As Dimock’s mother was an Owens who died in 1910 and is buried in Oakdale Cemetery, Wilson is curious how Mary Melvina Owens Dimock made her way back to North Carolina after the Lafayette Hotel burned down and she and Susan Dimock left Washington for Massachusetts in 1862.

“(I’m looking for) collateral descendants of the Dimock family, but also of the Owens family,” Wilson said. “Her father had been the sheriff of Beaufort County, but I have no details of this.”

Wilson also is seeking clarification about which Union Army regiments occupied Washington from 1862-64.

“I’m confused about the people who were in town during that two-year period,” she said.

Wilson said her goal is to get people thinking about their own connections to these families.

“To get people to go into their attics and go, ‘Oh, my God, I know something about this,’” Wilson said. “To me, that would be the treasure. … If the conversation gets started, that’s great.”

For more information about Wilson’s project, or to share information with her, she can be reached at 617-547-5457 or by emailing swilson547@brandeis.edu.