Henrietta "Yettie" Kersting, born in Giddings, Texas, on October 17th, 1863, was the daughter of Louisa (Johnson) and Henry Kersting, a German immigrant farmer. After receiving a public education and early business experience in Lee County, she settled around the turn of the century in the oil boomtown of Liberty, where she established a successful millinery business, invested her earnings mainly in real estate, acquired a two-story building across from the courthouse, moved her shop to the lower floor, rented part of it to another business, and operated a rooming house upstairs. She later opened the White Kitchen Café and ran it until retiring in 1940. Her long-held vision of a hospital was realized in 1935, when, at age 72, she left most of her estate to the people of Liberty County for that purpose. In 1940, construction began on one hospital unit at a cost of $18,000, and the first hospital clinic, on Sam Houston Street, was dedicated on October 18th, 1941, with Yettie Kersting as its first patient. Five weeks later, on November 22, she died in the hospital she had founded and endowed for "The relief of suffering humanity." Her dedication, thrift, generosity, and concern for citizens regardless of financial circumstances or ethnic background gave Liberty a lasting medical facility and left her memory deeply rooted in the community.