WESTON, Dr. "Red" Laurence

WESTON, JOHNSON

Posted By: Sharon R Becker (email)
Date: 11/11/2014 at 00:02:54

The Globe Gazette
Mason City, Cerro Gordo County, Iowa
Saturday, May 25, 1940, Page 16

THEY STARTED HERE
No. 10 in a Mason City Series of Success Stories

DR. LAURENCE WESTON, Medical Instructor

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Well known to sports enthusiasts of 20 and 25 years ago is the name of one of the finest athletes Mason City ever produced, Dr. Laurence Weston, whose exploits on the football field and basketball court a generation ago will not soon be forgotten.

For the terrific competitive spirit of the former Mason Cityan carried him to statewide recognition in high school and to All Big Ten and All American honors as a college athlete at the University of Wisconsin.

He was a shining light of those outstanding Mason City high school football teams of the years immediately preceding the war which swept all competition before them, sometimes piling up as much as 100 points or more and easily proving their right to be ranked as one of the finest high school grid aggregations in the middle west.

* * *
But it was in college that Laurence Weston was most outstanding, winning all conference recognition all three years he played football and All American ratings in his junior and senior years in the same sport. And in basketball he again shone, being picked on all conference teams his sophomore and junior years before an injured knee barred him from competition his last year.

The former Mason Cityan was born at Thornton June 25, 1898, where his father was a country doctor. The Weston family lived there until he was 5 years old, then coming to Mason City where Laurence Weston received his education through high school.

The youth earlyt showed a proclivity for athletics and it was natural for him to go in for high school competition as soon as he was able. Although not especially large, he had a fiercely competititve spirit and gave everything he had in every game he played.

* * *
As is natural with boys, the name Laurence was not deemed proper among his friends and as a youth he was known as "Red" and "Hoody." The source of the first nickname was, of course, the color of his hair, but as for the second, it apparently as an inheritance from his older brother, Dr. B. Raymond Weston, now of Mason City.

The Weston family came to Iowa from Wisconsin and "Red's" older brother had attended college at the University of Wisconsin. So it was natural that the Mason City youth would go to Madison for his higher education.

It was not long before the Iowan began to show up as an able man onthe gridiron. Although he had played halfback in high school, he became an end in the university and a good one at that, being named on the all Big Ten conference team his sophomore year. The same was true in basketball in both his first and second years before he was hurt in the football campaign of his last year.

* * *
In his junior year "Red" was accorded his first all American selection, being named to Walter Camp's second team and several other aggregations. He had become outstanding at his wing post, althugh he weighed only 168 pounds, and his lean figure was one to be feared by the opposing team met by the Badgers. It is told of Laurence Weston that he threw himself so completely into the fray that after a few plays he would start to cry and thereafter was a thorn in the side of the opposition for the rest of the afternoon.

America entered the war while the Mason City youth was in college and in June, 1918, he enlisted in the army air corps, going to Barron field, Texas, for training. But he didn't get overseas before the war ended and returned to school the following year for his senior year.

Football honors that year included a selection as captain of Walter Eckersall's All American team, being chosen on several other national squads and selection as captain of the all Big Ten team. There was hardly a team selected that did not mention the Wisconsin star.

* * *
While in college, "Red" Weston had been taking a pre-medical course of studies and when he was graduated from Wisconsin he did two things, enroll in the Rush medical school at Chicago, and got married.

Mrs. Laurence Weston was Ruth Johnson of Madison, prior to her marriage. She went with her husband to Chicago and was with him all the time he was in the medical school there and when he took two years of work in rotating internship at the Cook county hospital.

Following the internship at the Cook county hospital, Dr. Weston decided to specialize in pediatry - medical care of children. For a time he worke at a children's hospital in Chicago.

Then he decided to go into private practice, returning to Madison where he began to practice and at the same time joined the staff of the university's school of medicine and of the general hospital there.

Today, "Red" Weston, the all American athlete is gone and in his place is Dr. Laurence Weston, prominentn pediatrist and instructor on teh faculty of the school of medicine at the University of Wisconsin.

But the memory of the scrappy, gangling youngster still lingers at Camp Randall field and in the minds of all cardinal sports boosters of a generation or more standing.

Photograph courtesy of Globe-Gazette

Transcription by Sharon R. Becker, May of 2014

Cerro Gordo Biographies maintained by Lynn Diemer-Mathews.
WebBBS 4.33 Genealogy Modification Package by WebJourneymen