| WOODSON COUNTIES, KANSAS. | 465 cont'd |
CHARLES S. RANNELLS.
DR. CHARLES S. RANNELLS has been engaged in the practice of medicine in Allen county for twenty-two years. He possesses a broad humanitarian spirit, a sympathetic nature and a strong mind, that in its power of analysis enables him to correctly and carefully diagnose disease. These qualities have insured his success and won him prestige as a representative of the medical fraternity.
The Doctor was born in St. Louis county, Missouri, January 15, 1851, and is the eldest son of Dr. David Watson and Mary Eliza (Clarkson) Rannells, both of whom were natives of Kentucky. The father located in St. Louis county, Missouri, at an early day, his home being within seven miles of the city of St. Louis, and for forty-five years engaged in practice there, being the loved family physician of many a household. He died in 1876. His wife passed away many years before, leaving for children: Charles S.; Sallie, wife of Rev. Penn Mead, of New York, now deceased; Catherine, who is living in New York with her sister, and David, a resident of San Diego county, California.
Having acquired his preliminary education in the public schools, Charles S. Rannells afterward began the study of medicine under his father's watchful care and guidance, and subsequently became a student in the medical university of Baltimore, Maryland, in which institution he was graduated in the winter of 1876. He began practice in Baltimore, but
| 466 | HISTORY OF ALLEN AND |
after a year returned to Missouri to visit his father and practiced for one year in his old home neighborhood near St. Louis. In 1878 he came to Allen county, where he has since made his home, and for a number of years has been located in Savonburg. His practice extends into Neosho and Bourbon counties, and has now assumed large proportions.
The Doctor married Mrs. Mattie Ayers, widow of Benj. W. Ayers, and a daughter of Dr. G. G. Samuels, a native of Kentucky and one of the early settlers of St. Louis, where he met and married Adoline Butler, a representative of one of the old families of that city. Dr. Samuels died in 1895, while visiting in Arkansas, and his wife passed away many years before. By her first marriage Mrs. Rannells had two children: Mabel, a popular young lady of Allen county; and Bennie, who is married and resides in Kansas City. Unto the Doctor and his wife have been born a daughter, Sallie M., now sixteen years of age, and a son, Charles, who died at the age of twenty months. His success in the line of his chosen profession has brought to Dr. Rannells a comfortable competence and enables him to supply his family with many of the luxuries of life. His manner is cordial and courteous, his actions sincere, and all who know him recognize his sterling worth.
Pages 465-466, transcribed by Carolyn Ward from History of Allen and Woodson Counties, Kansas: embellished with portraits of well known people of these counties, with biographies of our representative citizens, cuts of public buildings and a map of each county / Edited and Compiled by L. Wallace Duncan and Chas. F. Scott. Iola Registers, Printers and Binders, Iola, Kan.: 1901; 894 p., [36] leaves of plates: ill., ports.; includes index.
