Carroll County IAGenWeb

HISTORY OF CARROLL COUNTY IOWA

A Record of Settlement, Organization, Progress and Achievement

VOLUME II ILLUSTRATED

CHICAGO THE S. J. CLARKE PUBLISHING COMPANY 1912

Transcriptions by Mona Sarratt Knight placed on this site with her permission.

DR. J. A. Downs, a well known representative of the medical fraternity in Carroll county, has maintained his office at Glidden since May, 1899, and has built up a large practice in surgery. His birth occurred in Mercer County, Illinois, on the 8th of July, 1869, his parents being Isaac and Samantha J. (Knox) Downs, both of whom were natives of Illinois. His paternal grandfather, Joshua Downs, was a native of Maine and became a pioneer agriculturist of Mercer County, Illinois. He died in early manhood, leaving three children, namely: Isaac; Ellen, who first married a Mr. White and subsequently became the wife of a Mr. Langston; and Parthena, who wedded a Mr. Mumey. The widow of Joshua Downs married Jefferson Fuller, by whom she had five children, as follows: William, Jefferson, Thomas, Rosana and Mary Ann. George W. Knox, the maternal grandfather of our subject, was a native of Maine and followed farming throughout his active business career, becoming a pioneer settler of Mercer county, Illinois. He and his wife lived to attain a ripe old age and reared a large family of children, including Samantha J., Ellen, Lydia, George W., Jr., and Joseph Benjamin.

Isaac Downs, the father of Dr. Downs, was a farmer by occupation and served as a soldier of the Civil war from 1862 until 1865. He belonged to Company G, One Hundred and Twenty-fourth Illinois Volunteer Infantry, and was later transferred to the Thirty-third. His demise occurred in November 1889, when he had attained the age of forty-seven years. He was a member of the Grand Army of the Republic and also of the Methodist church, to which his widow likewise belongs. Mrs. Downs, who still survives, makes her home with her daughter at Joy, Illinois. Isaac and Samantha J. (Knox) Downs had two children: J. A. of this review; and Irena M., the wife of William Robinson, of Joy, Illinois.

J. A. Downs spent the first twenty years of his life in his native county and in the acquirement of an education attended the public schools at Joy, Illinois. He next entered the Iowa Commercial College at Davenport and subsequently became superintendent of its actual business and banking interests, serving as vice president of the institution until his father's demise. At that time he left the college to settle his father's business and also took up the duties of tax collector, which office his father had held. Later, he was employed for two years as a draftsman by G. A. Hanson, an architect of Davenport. Having determined upon the practice of medicine as a life work, he took up the study of that profession in the State University of Iowa, from which he was graduated in 1897. Locating for practice at Oxford Junction, he there remained for a year and a half or until the town was destroyed by fire. Removing to Des Moines, he continued his studies in the Highland Park College of Pharmacy, which institution conferred upon him the degree of Ph. G. In May 1900, he opened an office at Glidden and has here remained to the present time, enjoying a practice that has steadily grown as his skill and ability have become recognized. He did not cease to be a student when he left college but by reading and investigation has broadened his knowledge and promoted his efficiency, also keeping in touch with the onward march of the profession through the inter-change of ideas in the Carroll County Medical Society, the Iowa State Medical Society and the American Medical Association.

On the 21st of December, 1892, Dr. Downs was joined in wedlock to Miss Mary Ida Baldwin, a native of Jones county, Iowa, and a daughter of Theoran J. and Eliza A. (Smith) Baldwin, both of whom were born in Ohio. They are now residents of Salina, Kansas. Their children were ten in number, as follows: Marcellus Osceola; Frank J.; Lyman; Fred; Harvey C. and Charles, both of whom are deceased; Jennie; Gertrude; Alma; and Mary Ida. Dr. Downs and his wife have three sons: Leslie E., William E. and Lawrence J.

In politics Dr. Downs is a republican, while his religious faith is indicated by his membership in the Methodist Episcopal church, to which his wife also belongs. His fraternal relations are with the Modern Woodmen. Genial in disposition, unobtrusive and unassuming, he is patient under adverse criticism and in his expressions concerning brother practitioners is friendly and indulgent.

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