Theodocia was one of at least 12 children born to Malinda Jane Smith and Lemuel Henry Armstrong, who moved to Texas from Alabama about 1847. When Dosha was only 2 1/2 years old, her father enlisted on March 15, 1862, at Waxahachie, Ellis County, Texas, as a private in Capt. William W. Parks's Company, Burford's (19th) Regiment, Texas Cavalry. He was described as 36 years old, 5'-8" tall, blue eyes and auburn hair. He left behind his wife and 5 small children, as the regiment moved to Arkansas, and later Louisiana, where they suffered many losses at the Yellow Bayou battle of the Red River Campaign. On September 18, 1864, Pvt L H Armstrong was admitted to CSA General Hospital in Shreveport, Louisiana, with diarrhea, and apparently did not return to service. The family moved to Duffau's Creek, Erath County, Texas, about October 1866. Lemuel H Armstrong is listed in the 1867 Voter Registration List in Erath County, where life was often rough, with continued Indian attacks as well as raids by outlaw bands. The Armstrongs had their own conflicts with the law, and by the 1880 federal census, both Lemuel Henry and Jane had died, leaving several small children.

Dosha married the older widower William Wesley Wright on April 13, 1879, in Tarrant County, Texas. William Wright also had served in the Civil War, as a private in Company A, 28th Regiment, Texas Cavalry. His wife Elizabeth died after 1870, and their children were grown. In 1880 Theodocia's little brother, James C Armstrong, age 7, was living in Tarrant County with the couple, along with her son, James, 2. Other young siblings of Theodocia had gone to live with other older siblings after their parents' deaths.

William Wright and Theodocia had a son, Yantes Carlton Wright, born in 1882. William Wright must have died soon after, and Dosha was said by a grandson to have been operating a boarding house at Barnes Mill when she met and married Richard Asberry Savage, on May 22, 1884, Shelby County, Texas. Berry and Dosha had at least 8 children of their own, but only two sons lived to adulthood. Their grandchildren affectionately remembered Berry as a quiet man, and Dosha as a petite, energetic and jolly woman who loved her family and spoiled her grandchildren. She died at the home of her son, Corbin Savage, in Timpson, Texas.

Her siblings include:
George Washington Armstrong
William Armstrong
Amos A Armstrong
Mary S "Mollie" Armstrong Drake
Narcissa A M Armstrong
Lemuel Henry Armstrong
John M Armstrong
Robert L Armstrong
Benjamin Elzie Armstrong
Lou Emma Armstrong Claybrook
James L Cornelius "Nick" Armstrong

Biography compiled by Sheron Smith-Savage.