Dr. L. K. Bobo

BOBO, HENDERSON, SEARS

Posted By: Sharon Elijah (email)
Date: 12/28/2019 at 09:25:12

24 September 1917 - The Clinton Advertiser page 7
Maquoketa, Ia., Sept. 24--OBITUARY OF DR. BOBO (By Ed Tabor)

Word has come to this office that Dr. L. K. Bobo, late of Oxford Junction and Maquoketa, passed away at the home of his sister, Mrs. Henderson, 408 South Brighton avenue, Dallas, Texas, on September 20, 1917.

When the end came, his devoted wife and daughter, Bettie, were at his side, a place they had not left during the seven months of the doctor's illness.

Dr. Bobo was born in Barren county, Kentucky, about fifty-eight years ago, of sturdy and worthy southern lineage. His father, Lacy Bobo, was a physician and a soldier in the Confederate army, who lost his life in the Civil war. His mother, Bettie, deprived of her property by the result of the war, taught a little school and brought up and educated her children, the late Doctor among them.

By his own efforts the lad put himself through school and himself became a school-master and a leader in Barren and Allen counties, Kentucky. He finished his college course at Lebanon, Tenn., and later went to Louisville Medical college, where he received the degree of Doctor of Medicine in 1887. He married Hattie Sears of Allen county, Ky., and of this marriage two children were born, Garner and Bettie. Garner having passed away in infancy.

After practicing for a couple of years in Rocky Hill, Ky., he and his family moved to Iowa, locating in Waukon. From there they came to Oxford Junction in 1893, where the doctor administered to the sick and afflicted for about fifteen years. He was at once recognized as a leader, and he established and built up a practice never surpassed and perhaps never equalled in the history of Oxford Junction. During the frightful diphtheria epidemic in the early '90s, the doctor's team could be seen at all hours of the night and day in every section of the country. Drives of 75 or 80 miles a day through mud and snow in summer and in winter were common and frequent occurrences. Day after day the writer knows that the doctor never slept a wink except what sleep he might snatch as his team went from one farm house to another. Everywhere his knowledge, his kindness and his common sense brought comfort and peace to hearts that were aching and full, and to bodies that were suffering and in pain.

On the doctor's scroll is inscribed more than one man's share of good deeds and sacrifices. If ever there was a man who was Duty's servant, it was he. His kindness was without limit. Hundreds of people can testify to services rendered without a penny paid. Scores can testify to accounts marked off the book because of inability to pay. And every fisher-boy knew his team, and no fishing lad ever had to walk back from Oxford Mills if the doctor could make room in his ever-going buggy.

After spending the best years of his life in this community, he went to Maquoketa, where he and Mrs. Bobo took charge of the Iowa Sanitorium in 1911 and 1912, and there again he devoted his life to the sick and wounded. In March of this year he was stricken with apoplexy, from which illness he never recovered. He was taken to Dallas, Texas, where now he rests.

The writer is in a position to speak of the doctors as perhaps no one else in the world can. He was taken into the doctor's household at an early age and there he learned to know the bigness of his heart, the strength and vigor of his mind and the unfailing fearlessness and fairness of his spirit. He was strong and brave and kind. He was a lover of all that was beautiful and good. His knowledge of Shakespeare and the Bible and Lowell and Tom Moore was profound. He was apt in quotation, clever in conversation, brilliant in repartee and argument, and sound in judgment. He was a scholar, a gentleman and a man, and hundreds upon hundreds will testify that he was as true a friend as ever lived.

His work is done and his memory is his monument.