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Jasper County, Iowa
Historical and Genealogical Data Exchange
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William F. Hamilton, M. D. The
medical profession of Jasper County has an able and worthy representative in the
person of Dr. William F. Hamilton, of Baxter, whose success, while yet young in
years, has won him a host of warm friends and admirers in the city and County
and made him widely and favorably known among the representative medical men in
this part of the state. There is no
class to whom greater gratitude is due from the world at large than the
self-sacrificing, sympathetic, noble-minded men whose life work is the
alleviation of suffering and the ministering of comfort to the afflicted, to the
end that the span of human existence may be lengthened and a greater degree of
satisfaction enjoyed during the remainder of their earthly sojourn. There is no
standard by which their beneficent influence can be measured; their helpfulness
is being limited only by the extent of their knowledge and skill, while their
power goes hand in hand with the wonderful laws
of nature that spring from the very source of life itself. Studying,
experimenting, trying out new theories, each succeeding generation coming a
little nearer the goal, a little farther along toward the city of Ease. Dr.
Hamilton was born in State Center Township, Marshall County, Iowa, August 11,
1882, but he has spent most of his life in Jasper County, whither his parents
brought him when he was four years of age.
He is the son of William Miller Hamilton, a native of Canada, who came to
Jasper County, Iowa, in 1886 and here became well established and highly
esteemed, and here he spent the latter years of his life, dying at Newton at the
age of seventy-three years. The
Doctor's mother, known in her maidenhood as Laura J. Manley, was a native of
Illinois and she is now making her home in Nevada, Iowa. There were five
children in the Hamilton family, all of whom are living, namely: George, who lives at Kellogg, this County; Paul lives in
Jasper County; Walter lives west of Baxter; Alfred maintains his home at
Grinnell; William F., of this sketch, is the youngest. Doctor Hamilton received his
primary education in the rural schools of this County, the public school of
Grinnell and the academy at Newton, later completing the four years' course at
the Teachers College at Cedar Falls, Iowa, after which he turned his attention
to teaching, which profession he followed with much success in the public
schools at Cedar Falls. Believing
that the medical profession held greater opportunities for one of his
inclinations, he accordingly began to prepare himself for the same, and with
this end in view spent a year in Northwestern University and four years in the
University of Louisville Medical School, Louisville, Kentucky, from which
institution he was graduated in 1911, having made an excellent record, winning
the admiration of both lecturer and colleague.
Thus exceptionally well equipped for his chosen life work, he located at
Baxter, Jasper County, Iowa, in the fall of the year of his graduation and here
continues to practice, having a modern, well equipped office, and so far he has
been very successful in all his work, winning the confidence and good will of
the people of this locality, and his past success augurs for his future
prominence in the medical world. Doctor Hamilton won, in
his earlier years, a worldwide reputation as an athlete, his interest being
centered for the most part in foot racing, in which at one time he had no peer.
In one of the meets he ran two hundred and twenty yards in twenty-one and
two-fifths seconds, which became the world's record on a curved track.
In the spring of 1906 he entered the western conference meet at Chicago,
winning the one hundred yard and the two hundred yard dashes.
In London, England, he ran on the relay team, which won for America the
championship of the world. He was
one of the fifteen athletes who were invited to an international meet in Paris,
France. There he again distinguished himself, winning the one hundred meter and
the two hundred meter dashes. He is
the proud possessor of over one hundred medals, cups and prizes. In 1908 he had
bestowed on him the title of National Champion. Doctor Hamilton is a
genial, obliging, cultured young man whom it is a pleasure to meet. He is essentially a man of the times, broad and liberal in
his views and has the courage of his convictions on leading public issues of the
day. He keeps in touch with the
trend of modern thought in its various lines, and bring a man of scholarly
tastes his acquaintance with the literature of the world is both general and
profound, while his familiarity with the more practical affairs of the day makes
him feel at ease with all classes and conditions of people. The Past and Present of Jasper County, Gen. James B. Weaver, Editor-In-Chief, 1912 B.F. Bowen Co., Indianapolis, IN, p. 1111. |
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