Swift, Dr. Frederick, Sr.
SWIFT
Posted By: Ken Wright (email)
Date: 11/22/2007 at 21:49:45
Maquoketa Sentinel-Press
November 17, 2007Dr. Frederick Swift, Sr. was born March 9, 1883, near Emeline. After just three years at Maquoketa High School, he left for college in Chicago at age 16.
He received his medical degree from the University of Illinois five years later, in 1904. He then served as in intern at a railroad hospital in Springfield, Mo., for six months.
Dr. Swift owned a drug store in Baldwin when World War I began. He enlisted and served as a physician in the U.S. Calvary Unit. He treated wounded soldiers at a hospital in France and was discharged as a lieutenant colonel.
He returned to Maquoketa in 1919, where he did general practice for the next 13 years.
He delivered many babies at home, including his own. He and his wife, born Blanche Campbell, had four children.
His surviving child, Regina Sagers of Maquoketa, who attended the induction ceremony, recalled how the whole family would ride along when her father made house calls. The doctor’s wife would drive, and the family would wait in the car while he treated the patient inside.
Always interested in politics, Swift served several terms as Maquoketa’s mayor in the 1920’s. He fought successfully to get the town its own generating plant.
He also served as the county coroner and as a railroad surgeon for the Northwestern Railroad in Maquoketa.
In 1928, he was elected as Jackson County’s state representative. Four years later, the governor elected him deputy health commissioner in Des Moines, and the family relocated there.
Swift was later to come back to Maquoketa and establish a practice on the second floor of what is now the Osterhaus Pharmacy building. He later built a new office at intersection of Pleasant and Second, across from the library.
After a bout with Parkinson’s disease, Swift died in 1962.
He and Blanche had celebrated their 50th anniversary the previous year. She lived until 1979, when she was buried with him at Mount Hope Cemetery in Maquoketa.
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