William Jepson

JEPSON, JANSON, BAKER

Posted By: Jim Sorenson (email)
Date: 8/16/2010 at 22:45:40

IOWA
ITS HISTORY AND TRADITION
VOLUME III
1804-1926

WILLIAM JEPSON

Dr. William Jepson, of Sioux City, is one of the foremost surgeons of the middle western country. Liberal educational advantages, of which he made splendid use, qualified him for entrance upon the professional career which has brought him to an eminent position as a practitioner and educator. He has never abandoned the ideals which he set up at the beginning of his career, nor has he deviated from the highest standard of professional ethics. A native of Aarhus, Denmark, he was born June 29, 1863, a son of Neils and Wilhelmina (Jansen) Jepson. The father, who was a millwright in his native country, came from Denmark to the United States in the '50s but later returned to his native land. Still later he again crossed the Atlantic and
established his home in Wayne county, Iowa, where he engaged for a time in the banking business and afterward followed farming, continuing his residence in Wayne county up to his death, which occurred October 3, 1873. It was in Burlington that he wedded Miss Jansen, who in recent years has made her home in Sioux City.

Dr. Jepson was a young lad at the time of the emigration of the family to this country and was but ten years of age on the death of his father. Following the removal of the family to Iowa he continued his education in the public
schools of Seymour, Iowa, and he completed an advanced course at Morningside College of Sioux City, from which he was graduated with the B. S. degree in 1892. He had previously determined on a medical career and had prepared for that profession in the Iowa State University, which conferred upon him his M. D. degree in 1886. Recognizing fully the great responsibilities which devolve upon the physician, he has made continuous effort to meet these
responsibilities through further study and investigation, and in 1891, after a course in Jefferson Medical College of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, he received from that institution the M. D. degree. The same year the M. D. degree was conferred upon him by the University of Pennsylvania at Philadelphia, in which he had taken special work. He was made a licentiate of the Royal College of
Surgeons at Edinburgh, Scotland, in 1897, and in 1907 the University of South Dakota conferred upon him the degree of Master of Arts.

Following his graduation from the Iowa State University, Dr. Jepson immediately entered upon the active practice of his profession. He has kept in close touch with the advanced methods that scientific research has brought to
light, and he enjoys a well earned reputation as a most able educator in his profession, having been professor of surgery in the Iowa State University from 1902 to 1913. Previous to this he was professor of surgery in the Sioux City College of Medicine (now extinct) for eleven years, covering the period from 1891 to 1902. He was elected president of the Iowa State Medical Society in 1905, is now serving as president of the Sioux Valley Medical Society and also has membership in the Missouri Valley Medical Society, the Western Surgical Association and the American Medical Association. Dr. Jepson is likewise the president of the Iowa State Board of Medical Examiners and is national president of the Professional Men's Clubs. His opinions are largely accepted as standard by the leading medical representatives of the middle west, and as a
surgeon he is ranked among the foremost and ablest in this section of the country.

On the 21st of December, 1886, at LeMars, Iowa, Dr. Jepson was united in marriage to Miss Beatrice Baker, and to them have been born four children: Roscoe William, Weir Agnew, Florence and Beatrice.

Dr. Jepson served as surgeon of the Fifty-sixth Iowa National Guard from 1907 to 1916 with the rank of major. During the years 1916 and 1917 he served as surgeon to the Second Iowa Regiment, stationed on the Mexican border. He
enlisted for service in the World war in May, 1918, and was chief surgeon of the base hospital at Camp Bowie, two miles west of Forth Worth, Texas, until March, 1919. Dr. Jepson also organized and acted as chairman of the Red Cross organization of Sioux City and Woodbury county, and he is at present commandant of the Iowa Medical World War Veterans. He is a thirty-second degree Scottish Rite Mason and a member of the Shrine. His name, moreover,is on the
membership rolls of the Sioux City Country Club, the Rotary Club and the Sigma Xi and Nu college fraternities.

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