DeBey, Albert M.D. & wife Gertrude

DEBEY, DEYOUNGUE, VANDERWOLF, BOLKS

Posted By: Linda Ziemann, Volunteer (email)
Date: 11/14/2013 at 14:20:19

A Narrative History
of
The People of Iowa
with
SPECIAL TREATMENT OF THEIR CHIEF ENTERPRISES IN
EDUCATION, RELIGION, VALOR, INDUSTRY,
BUSINESS, ETC.
by
EDGAR RUBEY HARLAN, LL. B., A. M.
Curator of the
Historical, Memorial and Art Department of Iowa
Volume IV
THE AMERICAN HISTORICAL SOCIETY, Inc.
Chicago and New York
1931

ALBERT DE BEY has to his credit a long and honorable service record as a
physician in the State of Iowa, where he has practiced medicine for over
forty-five years in Sioux County. He is still active in his chosen work, is a
hospital owner and a leading citizen of the community of Orange City.

Doctor de Bey was born in Holland, March 25, 1861. From France his parents
his parents, John G. and Ageline (de Youngue) de Bey, immigrated to America
in 1869 and settled in Chicago. Doctor de Bey had attended school in Holland
and was a pupil in the public schools of Chicago until he was thirteen.
After that he was earning and making his own way, getting his opportunities by
attending school, and in time had carried on his studies sufficiently and had
earned the money to enter Rush Medical College of Chicago, where he was
graduated with the M. D. degree in 1884. After three years of practice in New York
he returned to the West and in 1887 located at Orange City in Sioux County,
where he did the work of a pioneer doctor in the early days and has remained
one of the most honored members of his profession in that section of Iowa. A
number of years ago he established and has maintained a well equipped
private hospital. Doctor de Bey has been a leader in advancing the standards of
his profession and in promoting public health. He was Government medical
examiner during the World war, was a member of the state board of health and its
president in 1909, being appointed by Governor Cummins and serving until 1915.
For twenty years he was commissioner of insanity for Sioux County. Doctor
de Bey is a member of the various medical organizations, is a Republican and
a member of the American Reformed Church.

He married in 1882 Miss Anna Elizabeth Van Der Wolf, now deceased. By that
marriage there were two sons, John Gerhardus, born June 17, 1883, who is a
graduate in medicine from Des Moines Medical School of Drake University, 1910.
He has since been associated with his father for twenty years in the hospital
at Orange City. He married in June, 1911, Miss Nina Creger, of Des Moines,
and they have two children, Albert Lee Gerard and Della Beth. Cornelius,
born April 23, 1885, a graduate of Iowa State University, at Iowa City, and is
one of the leading dental surgeons at Denver, Colorado. He married in
September, 1911, Miss Blanche Gibboney, of Lisbon, Iowa, and they have one daughter,
Leanore.

Doctor de Bey on September 18, 1890, married Gertrude Johanna Bolks,
daughter of Gerrit Bolks, an educator and later a business man, and son of Rev.
Seine Bolks, a pioneer minister of the Reformed Church at Orange City, having
established the first church of the Dutch Reformed faith in Sioux County, and
was founder of Northwestern Classical Academy. The three children of this
marriage are Marcia Angeline, born June 24, 1896, is a graduate of the State
University at Iowa City in 1919. She taught school in Sioux City before her
marriage to George W. Dempsey on September 6, 1924. Mr. Dempsey has been with
the Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company for fourteen years and is now located at
Omaha as manager of the exclusive truck tire department. Albert Bevan, born May
20, 1906, graduated from the University of Nebraska at Lincoln in 1928. He
is now employed by the telephone organization but hopes to enter a medical
course later. Dirk Ian, born February 11, 1910, is now a student at the
University of South Dakota at Vermilion, class of 1932.
========================================

From the Sioux County Capital, January 14, 1937:

Among Our Subscribers, by Chas. L. Dyke

Mrs. A. De Bey:

One of the unsung heroines of our little city is Mrs. A. De Bey. Mrs. De Bey is a daughter of the late Gerrit Bolks and a granddaughter of the beloved pioneer minister Siene Bolks who in early days served both as a spiritual and medical advisor. She married Dr. A. De Bey, a young widower with two little boys who came here from Fulton, Ill. She raised the boys as if they were her own, and also became the mother of one daughter and two sons. While raising her family her husband’s father came to live with them and lived to a ripe old age when he sickened and died. After him her own father came to live with them and also died and was buried from their home.

The doctor was a brilliant and learned man. With only a two-year medical course to his credit he performed difficult operations and hardly ever lost a patient. He also found time to be well versed in general literature, and was particularly fond of Shakespeare, who he could quote by the yard, and of Poe, whose poem “The Raven” fascinated him. He was also well read in ancient and modern philosophy and could discourse on Plato and Aristotle like a college professor. He loved music, was a fair performer on the cello, played the piano, knew every opera, and in a rich and powerful voice sang bass solos that made the chandeliers ring. Although he learned easily and what he grasped was his, it is not easy to understand how he found time for it all. “But presumably his nights were filled with music, and the cares that infested the day, would fold their tents like the Arabs, and as silently steal away.”

During the horse and buggy days especially in winter when there was not much to do in our implement business, he would ask us to go along on his trips for company. Then we would get him to talk on literature, philosophy or music, and our conversation soon drifted into a lecture on his part, and which we drank in like a thirsty wanderer in a desert drinks in water.

But the hard work of the horse and buggy days told on him and his two car accidents, one in which he broke a leg, weakened him further, and when the dread disease spinal arthritis fastened itself upon him, the once brilliant mind dulled and faded away. Only when one leads him on with a line of Shakespeare or of a favorite poem a faint flicker of intelligence returns and he will quote a part.

In a tribute to his favorite poem “The Raven” he had a raven mounted and put over his fireplace. And when we stood by his bedside and spoke of it to Mrs. De Bey, it awakened an echo in his mind and he began to quote the poem. Saturday night said Mrs. De Bey, he would not go to sleep until one a.m., but when she read some favorite selections of Shakespeare to him he fell asleep.

But after her long vigil with her husband she was in church at ten a.m. and her fine alto voice blended pleasantly with the other worshipers. In spite of all her troubles Mrs. De Bey carries on and her frame of mind is calm and serene. Great woman is Mrs. De Bey. One of the few survivors of a once mighty family in Sioux county.

(See their obituaries in the Obituaries section for additional information.)
================================

The Sioux County Family Album, Page 38

Photograph Identification (left to right)
Albert DeBey, M.D., pioneer
His son, John G. DeBey, M.D.
Mrs. J. G. DeBey, Orange City

Source: The Story of Sioux County, 2nd Edition, 1942
Author: Charles L. Dyke

Sioux Biographies maintained by Linda Ziemann.
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