Francis L. Smith

FRANCIS L. SMITH, M. D. In a community where he was reared and where he has spent most of his life, Dr. F. L. Smith has gained a large clientele as a physician and surgeon and is commended as a man of ability and of unusual success in his profession.

He was born in Chariton, Iowa, May 6, 1874. His father, Francis M. Smith, was born in Indiana in 1846. When very young he enlisted in Company H of an Indiana Regiment of Infantry and served in the Army of the Potomac under General Grant. At the battle of the Wilderness he was wounded in the leg and soon afterward, because of this wound, received an honorable discharge from the army. Soon after the war he went to Chariton, Iowa, and was employed as a private watchman for several years. He married in Iowa and in 1883 brought his family to Kansas and settled on a farm near Lucas, where he died in 1908. He was a republican and a member of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows.

Francis M. Smith married Mary Patrick, who was born in Tennessee in 1848 and died at Lucas, Kansas, in 1910. Their children were three in number: Laura J., wife of John Spoon, living near Lucas on a farm; Dr. Francis L.; and Sarah Stella who died at Lucas in 1899, the wife of Merritt Smith.

Francis L. Smith attended the public schools of Lucas and as a youth for three years worked in a local drug store. While there his ambition became fixed upon a medical career, and he did his first preliminary study under Dr. George E. Eye. He then entered the Emsworth Medical College at St. Joseph, Missouri, where he was graduated M. D. in 1900. Since then and for a period of eighteen years he has sustained an enviable place in Lucas as a physician and surgeon with a general practice. He owns his office building on Main Street and also a residence on the same thoroughfare. He is a member of all the medical societies and served two years as county coroner of Russell County. He is a republican and is affiliated with the Lucas Lodge of Masons, Rusell Chapter, Royal Arch Masons. Lucas Lodge of Odd Follows, and Lucas Lodge of Ancient Order of United Workmen.

In 1905, at Lucas, Doctor Smith married Miss Celia A. Aksmit, daughter of James and Mary Aksmit, retired farmers living at Lucas.

Pages 2114-2115.