Levings Attwood Opdyke MD (1861 - 1939)

Born 21 Sep 1861 in Clinton, Hunterdon, New Jersey

Ancestors

Husband of Grace T (Wilson) Opdyke — married 26 Jun 1889 in Brooklyn, Kings, New York

Descendants

Died 6 Jul 1939 at age 77 in Jersey City, Hudson, New Jersey

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Biography

Levings Atwood Opdyke was born September 21, 1861 at Clinton, New Jersey. He graduated from the Normal School (Trenton) in 1880, four months prior to his father’s death. He entered the New York Homoeopathic Medical College and graduated in 1885. He opened a practice in Jersey City, New Jersey the same year.

Grace T Wilson was born May 30, 1863 at Newburgh, New York, to Peter Martin Wilson (b: January 8, 1831 d: April 16, 1914) and Cordelia Curly (Ward) Wilson (b: 1854 d: ____). On Jun 26, 1889, at Brooklyn, New York, Grace and Levings were married. Together they had three children: two daughters, Gladys and Elizabeth and one son, Porter Hoffman.

Levings had many interests: travel, photography, astronomy. He also loved cars. He was one of the first in Jersey City to own and operate an automobile.

Dr. Opdyke practiced medicine for 54 years out of his home in Jersey City. He retired in 1927. He and his wife went on a two year round the world trip. Upon his return in November 1929, he resumed his practice due to the stock market crash having wiped out all of his savings. In 1939, he fell and broke his hip. Two months later, on Jul 6, 1939, Levings died due to complications attributed to the fall. Grace passed May 8, 1951 at Jersey City.

Levings was a selfless, generous and compassionate man. He lived by example. Harry L. Everett, minister of the First Congressional Church in Jersey City, in a letter to his daughter Elizabeth, after his death, wrote:

… I am entering my 30th year of service in Jersey City. Of all the gentlemen I have associated with during the years your father stands out as a great mountain against a valley. In the highest gentility he stood supreme. What he gave in his profession everyone knows what he brought to a sick room in personality no measure can truly estimate. He lived and understood what some men of religion speak about. His theology I fully appreciated, but I knew that by breeding he inherited something that I and many others call pure Christianity. He was a Christian but not by the standards of the Pharisees.

… Artists find it most difficult to paint the glories of the sunset or the rising sun. If these words seem fulsome it is because the reader does not know the late Dr. L.A. Opdyke. God has and will bless his memory. He lived what other men talk about…

Sources

Find a Grave, 107334155 (B,D); Opdyke Genealogy, Charles Wilson Opdyke (B[Yr only]); Rathbone Genealogy (B,M); Passport Application, 3 May 1889 (B); Alumni Record of Wesleyan University, Middletown, CT, 1868,1873, 1881-1883, 1883, 1911 (B); Journal of the American Medical Association, Vol 113, No 14 (1939) (D); North American Journal of Homoeopathy (1889) (M); Boston Herald, Death Notice, 7 July 1939; New York Times, Death Notice, Obit, 7 July 1939

Footnotes

Acknowledgments

Thank you to Richard Opdyke for creating Opdyke-69 on 4 Sep 13. Click the Changes tab for the details on contributions by Richard and others.