John William McMillen

JOHN WILLIAM McMILLEN is a successful osteopathic physician at Stockton and is a man of unusually wide range of experience in his profession. For four years he was in the medical department of the United States Navy, and in that time traveled over practically all the world. He was born at Emmett, Arkansas, January 9, 1881. His father, J. J. McMillen, was born in Mills County, Iowa, in 1849, grew to manhood there, and though a boy at the time he enlisted and was in the border warfare and engaged in keeping the pence of the frontier during the Civil war. He was badly wounded, and that probably shortened his life. After the war he became a contractor in the construction of the Iron Mountain Railway, and lived for some years at Emmett, Arkansas, where he married and where he died in 1889. He was a democrat and was honored with several township offices, was an active Methodist and a member of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows.

J. J. McMillen married Mabel McDermott, She was born in Texas and died at Emmett, Arkansas, in 1881, at the birth of her son John W. Her other son, J. D. McMillen, is now in the implement business at Council Bluffs, Iowa.

John William McMillen after the death of his mother was taken into the home of his grandfather, James McMillen, by whom he was reared. James McMillen was born in Ohio in 1827, and was descended from Scotch ancestors. He was of pioneer temperament, and in his early years he established a home on a farm in Mills County, Iowa, and later was a California forty-niner. He had much success in the mines of California, but lost all his accumulated fortune when bandits set upon him and robbed him just as he was starting back east, and he had to walk across the plains. In Civil war times he engaged in freighting in the west along the Platte River and as far west as the mountains. He died at Malvern in Mills County, Iowa, in 1903.

It was in his grandfather's home that Doctor McMillen grew to manhood, having the training of a farm boy, and he spent two years in the high school at Malvern. For five years he was a practical farmer in Mills County and in 1901 entered the Kirksvllle College of Osteopathy, from which he graduated D. O. in October, 1904. One year was spent in practice in South Dakota, after which he entered the United States Navy in the Bureau of Medicine and Surgery. Four months were given to attending the school of instruction at Norfolk, Virginia, after which he was transferred to the Mare Island Hospital in California one year, spent two years on the Island of Guam, and then for eight months was on cruising duty in Japanese and Philippine waters and later was stationed at the Puget Sound Navy Yard at Bremerton, Washington.

In June, 1909, Doctor McMillen located at Stockton, Kansas, and for nearly ten years has enjoyed most gratifying prestige and success in his profession. He is the only osteopath in Rooks County. His offices are in the McMillen building, which he owns. He also has 320 acres of farm land in Rooks County, and in 1916 he erected a fine modern home surrounded by fruit and shade trees. He is present health officer of Stockton, is a republican, and a member of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows.

January 1, 1917, at Stockton, Doctor McMillen married Miss Pearl Johnson, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Nels Johnson, residents of Stockton, her father being an engineer with the Missouri Pacific Railway Company.

Pages 2445-2446.