John C. Mitchell

JOHN C. MITCHELL, M. D. All the professional service rendered the community of Waldo in Russell County has been furnished by Dr. John C. Mitchell, who was the first regular physician to locate there, and has kept up his practice steadily for over twenty years.

Doctor Mitchell has spent nearly all his life in Kansas, but was born near Schuyler, Nebraska, May 18, 1874. His ancestors were Scotch-Irish, and the Mitchells have always lived close to the frontier. His grandfather, John Mitchell, born in 1806, was a circuit rider preacher of the Methodist Church, and carried the Gospel to many remote communities. He died in Ohio in 1884. A. T. Mitchell, father of Doctor Mitchell, was born at Graysville, Ohio, November 5, 1842. When he was a small boy his parents moved to Northern Indiana, and he grew up near Elkhart in that state. In 1861, at the age of nineteen, he enlisted in the Fourth Indiana Light Artillery. He was with his battery until shot through the right thigh at Stoney Point, and soon aferwards[sic] was mustered out for disability. Returning to Indiana, he finished his education at Mount Pleasant in that state, was married at Elkhart, and the spring of 1873 moved to Schuyler, Nebraska. In the spring of 1874, about the time his son Dr. John Charles Mitchell was born, the father moved to Crawford County in Southeastern Kansas. He was a farmer and merchant at Beulah for a number of years. Later he bought the old Jim Lane farm at Lane in Franklin County, Kansas, and that was his home from 1882 to 1885. Leaving his farm, he was a regular minister at Palco from 1890 to 1892. He was at Moreland for two years, at Sylvan Grove two years, Galatia two years, Claflin two years, and then continued his work in various parts of Northwestern Kansas until he retired. He died at Moreland September 5, 1908, aged sixty-five. In politics he was a republican, and was affiliated with the Masons, the Odd Fellows and the Grand Army of the Republic. Rev. A. T. Mitchell married Josephine Elizabeth Moore. She was born at Elkhart, Indiana. January 11, 1847, and died at Moreland, Kansas, February 13, 1912. They became the parents of six children: Florence G., wife of George Wilson, a farmer at Great Bend, Kansas; M. E., a hardware merchant at Moreland; Dr. John Charles; Helen, wife of M. C. Bredhal, an oil operator at Tulsa, Oklahoma: Dora, who died at the age of twelve years; and Frank, an irrigation farmer at Greeley, Colorado.

John Charles Mitchell received his education in the public schools while his parents lived in Crawford, Franklin and Graham counties, Kansas. He took his professional work in the Ensworth Medical College of St. Joseph, Missouri, where he graduated M. D. in 1897. In the same year he located at Waldo in Russell County, being the first physician to establish a home there, and has been there now continuously for twenty-one years. He also established the only drug store in that part of Russell County in 1897, and has owned and operated the store ever since. His business property on Main Street comprises his store, his office and his residence. He also has ten acres in the townsite and four lots on Main Street. Mr. Mitchell has invested in farm lands, including 320 acres in Osborne County, and 640 acres of wheat land in Russell County. He is examiner for some of the large old-line insurance companies, and is affiliated with the Masonic fraternity, the Independent Order of Odd Fellows and the Modern Woodmen of America. Doctor Mitchell is a republican in politics.

February 2, 1913, at Waldo, he married Miss Etta Archer, daughter of William and Mary Archer. Her parents are retired farmers living in Waldo. Doctor and Mrs. Mitchell have two children: Jack, born November 10, 1913, and Frank, born November 26, 1917.

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