[2] Additionally, Hawks' ancestry revealed that both of her grandfathers, John Hill of Andover and Jedediah Kimball, served as soldiers during the War of the Revolution.
[1][3] After her husband became involved with an established hospital for people of color in Beaufort, South Carolina, Hawks assumed a larger and more clinical role.
[1] Between South Carolina and Florida, Hawks continued to occupy her time through medical volunteering and educating black individuals.
[2] Subsequently, she became the General Superintendent of the city schools, an administrator for the Freedmen's Bureau, and helped run an orphanage for black children.
[2][4] Many times, Hawks highlighted the bare lives black children and former slaves lead with feelings of sadness and a goal to help them as much as possible.
[4] After returning to Massachusetts in 1870, Hawks partnered with Dr. Lizzie Breed Welch, who had her own practice and together they became two out of the first three female physicians in Lynn.
After her death, he included in her will for scholarships to be given to students in Lynn High School who wrote the best essays on the subject of peace, leaving much of her fortune to help promote the education of future generations.