Albert Garfield Byers (1880 - 1957)

Born 17 Sep 1880 in Avery, Monroe County, Iowa

Ancestors

Husband of Laura E. Booth — married 14 Jan 1920 in Des Moines, Iowa

Died Jan 1957 at age 76 in Cedar Rapids, Iowa

Problems/Questions Profile manager: Ellen Jennings [send private message]

This person was created through the import of Jenkins Family File w:sources 9.ged on 04 October 2010. The following data was included in the gedcom. You may wish to edit it for readability.

Birth

Birth:

Date: 17 SEP 1880

Place: Avery, Monroe County, Iowa

Source: #S489

Source: #S494

Death

Death:

Date: JAN 1957

Place: Cedar Rapids, Iowa

Source: #S489

Burial

Burial:

Place: Coggon Cemetary

Occupation

Occupation: medical doctor

Source: #S494

Education

Education: Albia Community High School, Class of 1899; Burns Medical College, St. Louis (graduating April 27, 1904)

Source: #S167

Source: #S489

Religion

Religion: Disciples of Christ (Christian Church)

Source: #S494

Note

Note: @N472@

@N472@ NOTE

In 1900 Census, Albert is 19 yo and living in Albia with his brother William and his 60 yo widowed mother.

In 1910 census, he is 29 yo doctor and living in Oklahoma as a boarder.

Albert was “recommended by the Surgeon General for Commission in the Medical Officer Corps and assigned to duty” as a 1st Lieutenant.

In 1920 census, Albert is 39 yo and living in Kellerton, Iowa with his 39 yo wife Laura E. and her children, Leo (17yo) and Oma(15yo) French. Albert is listed as a doctor in general practice and his wife is the manager of a general store.

In 1925 Iowa State Census, Albert is living in Coggon, Linn Co., Iowa and married.

In 1954, he is still living and practicing medicine in Coggon, Iowa.

Doctor Notes 50 Years of General Practice

Albert G. Byers of Coggon Earned One Dollar a Family as His First Monthly Fees

By John Reynolds, Gazette Sunday Editor

One Dollar a family. that was the doctor’s monthly fee. And he got $5 extra for each confinement case.

That one dollar paid for all the drugs, all the bandages, all the cough syrup, all the extras. And there wasn’t much left for the doctor.

Such is the recollection of Dr. Albert G. Byers of Coggon when he looks back to the days when he began the practice of medicine in the coal mining camps of southern Iowa.

This year marks the end of a half-century of practice for the now 73-year-old medical man. He has practiced all of those 50 years in Iowa. In coggon two different times, Dr. Byers has spent a total of 18 years in service to this city and its rural neighbors within a radius of five miles or more.

Although he has limited his practice in recent years---doesn’t take obstetrics cases any more, doesn’t make night calls unless in case of real emergency--the doctor’s office door is still open.

“I’d kind of like to quit this thing altogether,” the doctor said last week. “but as long as I’m in town, have an office and have the door open, there will be someone coming to see me.”

In observance of the doctor’s fiftieth anniversary, there will be an open house today from 2:30- 5 and from 5 to 9:30 p.m. in the Byers office-residence on Coggon’s principal street.

The building, originally erected as a professional office, has been added to on different occasionas, now has 14 rooms. All of them and others were needed to accommodate the 21 houseguiests the doctor and his wife invited for the weekend.

Some guests were accommodated in the big home of Dr. Byers’ stepson, Leo French, Coggon hardwareman.

In addition to the French family, which includes a son, Albert “Bob” French, his wife and their daughter from Iowa City and Bonnie Jo French of Coggon, a Cornell student, others in attendance at the reunion-anniversary celebration of the Byers family are: Mr. and Mrs. Carl Mosley of St. Louis (Mrs. Mosley is Dr. Byers’ step-daughter); the Moseleys’ two sons, Eugene, in the navy and Jack, in business with his father in the Mosely Electronics Corporation of St. Louis; the Eugene Moseley’s son and the Jack Mosley’s two daughters; Dr. Byers’ two nephews, Paul and John Giltner of Elliot, Ia; Mr. and Mrs. Andy Anderson and son, from Mt. Ayr; Mr. and Mrs. Frank N. Smith of Marengo were to join the Byers today as were Mr. and Mrs. Warren Caldwell of Oswego? and their two children.

Dr. Byers attended Mrs. Caldwell’s mother at the birth of Mrs. Caldwell and delivered both of the Caldwell children.

There was a family dinner at the doctor’s residence last night and the family with a few friends were to have dinner today at the Leo French home.

Dr. Byers was born at Avery, finished high school at Albia, county seat of Monroe County.

He took his medical training at Burns’ Medical College, St. Louis, getting his degree April 28, 1904.

Immediately thereafter he returned to southern Iowa and began practicing among the then-booming coal mining camps and the towns of Buxton, Bussey, Durfew and White City.

His first established office was in Bussey.

Hired by the miners’ union and paid by the company, Dr. byers spent a good deal of his time treating the miners and the families for the illnesses and injuries. At the same time he built up a practice to include farm folks from the surrounding area.

Those days were rough ones in the mining camps. The miners were hard-working, fist-swinging men. And a lot of the personal injuries were Dr. Byers was called upon to attend were not suffered accidentally in the mines.

Facilities for the treatment of all patients were very limited. Most of the sick and injured were cared for at home. The nearest hospital, at the time, was at Oskaloosa, many miles away. X-ray was just too far away and most of the broken bones were set without benefit of more than the skilled hands of the then-young doctor.

Dr. Byers went into the army in 1917, served most of the time at Fort Riley, Kansas and Fort Lewis, wash.

Returning to Iowa, he opened a practice in Kellerton where he and Mrs. Byers were married in 1920.

Later they moved to Lake View, then to Coggon for the first time, in 1929. There were there three years when, because of illness in Mrs. Byers’ family, back in Kellerton, they moved back there, returning to Coggon in 1939.

In the early days of his practice, Dr. Byers, along with all the other “country doctors” of his time, made many of their calls on foot--despite distances. There were times when snow and mud made the use of any vehicle impossible.

He bought his first car in 1920, after he returned from the army. And since then he has worn out a succession of them, trading about every two years.

Travel difficulties have been all but erased in contemporary years.

“There’s scarcely a home anywhere around here to which you can’t travel on gravel or paving---if you just know your way around a little,” Dr. Byers say.s

Biggest changes in the doctor’s life have not been those connected with traveling to his patients but those associated with the treatment of the patients themselves.

“There have been amazing changes and vast improvements in the practice of medicine,” Dr. Byers said.

He remembes a time when every “baby case” was a challenge to the doctor. “Today a doctor never thinks about ‘losing’ a baby,” Dr. Byers commented.

In his years of practice the Coggon physician has seen the killers such as pneumonia, typhoid fever, smallpox, tuberculosis and a host of others brought under control.

 :Abilty to combat infection with the wonder drugs has given the physicians great advantages in their battles for life against death.” Dr. Byers said.

He also mentioned the revolutionary treatment of fractures, as compared with the old methods as he outlined the 50 year course of medicine which has been his personal experience.

In Dr. Byers’ estimation, the country doctor is a kind of vanishing American.

The doctor has seen not only the passing of the older men of medicine from the rural field but a lack of replacement from the young ranks.

He doesn’t expect that situation to change much in the near future, either.

“I don’t think you’ll get these youngsters to come out to the smaller cities and towns,” he said. “It’s not the kind of practice they’re looking for.”

Source: #S390

Source: #S393

Source: #S495

Source: #S394

Source: #S449

Source: #S489

Source: #S493

@S390@ SOUR

Type: Census

Title: U.S. Federal Population Census

Place: Troy Twp., Monroe County, Iowa

Date: 1900

Source Locality: Ancestry.com via Cook Library

DATV July 3, 2005

@S393@ SOUR

Type: Census

Title: U.S. Federal Population Census

Place: Pawnee Twp., Lincoln County, Oklahoma

Date: 1910

Source Locality: Ancestry.com via Cook Library

DATV July 5, 2005

@S495@ SOUR

Type: Book

Author: Fairchild, F.A.C.S., Dr. D. S.

Periodical: History of Medicine in Iowa Reprinted from The Journal of the Iowa State Medical Society

Page: 1 - 95

Date: 1927

Submitter: transcribed by Sheryl Farral for “Iowa in the Great War” IAGenWeb Special Project, August 2007

@S394@ SOUR

Type: Census

Title: U.S. Federal Population Census

Place: Kellerton, Ringgold County, Iowa

Date: 1920

Source Locality: Ancestry.com via Cook Library

DATV July 5, 2005

@S449@ SOUR

Type: Census

Title: Iowa State Census Collection, 1836 - 1925

Media: microfilm of Iowa State Censuses

Source Locality: State Historical Society of Iowa via Heritage Quest and Ancestry.com

DATV March 15, 2007

@S489@ SOUR

Type: Newspaper

Title: Doctor Notes 50 Years of General Practice

Periodical: Cedar Rapids Gazette

Place: Cedar Rapids,Iowa

Date: June 13, 1954

Page: 25

Media: photocopy

Source Locality: online @ Access Newspaper Archive

@S493@ SOUR

Type: Newspaper

Title: Doctor Note 50 Years of General Practice

Periodical: Cedar Rapids Gazette

Place: Coggon, Iowa

Date: June 13, 1954

Page: 25

Media: photo copy via internet

Source Locality: via Accessible Newspaper Archives via Cook Library

DATV August 2007

User ID

User ID: 0054310B3D054A35ABD09FE87285A608F8F2

While processing relationships in the gedcom some additional information was found which may be relevant.

@F926@ FAM

Husband: @I1251@

Wife: @I3131@

Marriage:

Date: 14 JAN 1920

Place: Des Moines, Iowa

Source: #S407

User ID: 12CECB1177F44517833CD74BA933A97760FD

@F248@ FAM

Husband: @I547@

Wife: @I335@

Marriage:

Date: 1860

Source: #S137

User ID: 5329BB074DB84C468178B63C938254EF1847

Child: @I1099@

Child: @I1250@

Child: @I1101@

Child: @I111@

Child: @I1100@

Child: @I337@

Child: @I1251@

Sources

Source S137

Type: Book

Periodical: National Society of the Daughters of the American Revolution

Volume: 93

Page: 206

Source S167

Type: Newspaper

Title: Class of 1899

Periodical: Albia Union Newspaper

Place: Albia, Iowa

Date: June 5, 1903

Media: Microfilm #307

Source Locality: Monroe County Genealogical Society

Volume: Vol. 41, #81

Source S407

Type: Newspaper

Title: Pioneer’s Birthday

Periodical: Albia Union newspaper

Place: Albia, Iowa

Date: Jan. 20, 1920

Source Locality: Albia Historical Society

Source S489

Type: Newspaper

Title: Doctor Notes 50 Years of General Practice

Periodical: Cedar Rapids Gazette

Place: Cedar Rapids,Iowa

Date: June 13, 1954

Page: 25

Media: photocopy

Source Locality: online @ Access Newspaper Archive

Source S494

Type: Newspaper

Title: Dr. Byers of Coggon Dies

Periodical: Cedar Rapids Gazette

Place: Coggon,Iowa

Date: January 7, 1957

Source Locality: via Access Newspapers Archives @ Cook Library