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1907 Past and Present Biographies

William Madison Young, M.D.

The true measure of individual success is determined by what one has accomplished, and, as taken in contradistinction to the old adage that a prophet is not without honor save in his own country, there is particular interest attached to the subject of this review, since he is a native son of Greene county. He was born in Washington township in 1857 and is a son of Thomas S. and Caroline (Burk) Young. His father was of Irish ancestry, but was born in South Carolina, coming to Iowa in 1856 and locating in Greene county in old Rippey. He ran a mill there for a number of years and was so successful that he was able to buy a farm in Grant township, where he spent the remainder of his life. but was an able business man, and by his methodical habits and thrifty life became the owner of three hundred acres of land and a large dealer in cattle and hogs. Though positive in his convictions, he stood by them always with good nature. He was jovial, friendly to all who loved him. but a man who did not hate his enemies. His wife, a native of Oswego, New York, was a daughter of Dr. Amos Burk, a physician of note in his community, who came from England to the United States. He settled in Greene county, Iowa, about 1856, locating on a farm in Washington township, where he practiced his profession for a number of years.

Dr. Young is indebted to the public schools of Jefferson county for his early education. With this meager equipment, he acknowledges that he learned more by his experience as a teacher for several years. Afterward he pursued a special course in the College of Physicians and Surgeons in Keokuk, Iowa, from which he was graduated in 1881. Not satisfied with his equipment as yet, he subsequently took post-graduate courses at the Post Graduate College and the Polyclinic College at Chicago. He was a very careful student and one of the most prominent representatives of his class. His active practive began in the spring of 1881 at Paton, where he remained for eighteen months, removing at the end of that time to Bayard, where he continued his medical practice for ten years. In 1893 he removed to Jefferson, where he has secured a wide reputation in his chosen calling and is still in the enjoyment of a large patronage, both as a general practitioner and a surgeon. He is a member of the State, American and County Medical Associations.

The Doctor was married in 1879 to Allie K. Anderson, who was born in 1860 and is a daughter of William and Lydia Anderson. Her father was a wealthy agriculturist and stockman and operated grain elevators 1n different parts of the country and spent his later years in Jefferson, where as a young man he had conducted a hotel. Three children have been born to this union: Gus B., a physician at Jefferson; Claude S., who is engaged in the automobile and land business in Plainview, Texas; and Maude, who is in school. The Doctor belongs to the Methodist Episcopal church, of which he is steward. He is a republican in his political views and was the efficient coroner of Greene county for many years. He is a gentleman of marked courtesy and highly polished manners, of genial disposition and of sterling worth, who has already attained to a creditable position in his profession and will no doubt win still greater success in the future.

Transcribed from "Past and Present of Greene County, Iowa Together With Biographical Sketches of Many of Its Prominent and Leading Citizens and Illustrious Dead,"
by E. B. Stillman assisted by an Advisory Board consisting of Paul E. Stillman, Gillum S. Toliver,
Benjamin F. Osborn, Mahlon Head, P. A. Smith and Lee B. Kinsey, Chicago: The S. J. Clarke Publishing Company, 1907.

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