Harrison County Iowa Genealogy

HISTORY OF HARRISON COUNTY, IOWA, 1915
BIOGRAPHIES
Page 857
WILLIAM A. SHIELDS, D.V.S.

A good veterinary surgeon is a most valuable asset to every farming community, and in the person of Dr. William A. SHIELDS, of Logan, Iowa, is found a man who is rapidly forging to the front in this profession. It has only been within the past quarter of a century that veterinary science has become recognized as a distinct profession, and now there are many colleges giving courses in veterinary science. Doctor SHIELDS is a graduate of an excellent veterinary school and during the past six years has rapidly come to the front as a very successful practitioner in the treatment of animal diseases.

William A. SHIELDS, the son of Timothy and Mary (MCCARTHY) SHIELDS, was born in 1886, in Magnolia township, Harrison county, Iowa. His parents reared a family of three children, Dr. William A., who is the eldest of the family; Edward A., who is a construction iron worker now in Texas, and Nellie, who, after graduating from the Logan high school and the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music, became a teacher in the public schools of Logan. Later she married and now lives in San Francisco, California.

Timothy SHIELDS was born in Decatur, Iowa, in 1860. He was reared on a farm and remained at home until he was about seventeen years of age. He then came to Logan, Iowa, and commenced to work in a blacksmith shop, learning the trade. About five years later he left the shop and engaged in farming in Harrison county, but after six years on the farm he moved to Woodbine and opened a blacksmith shop. Three years later he sold his shop in Woodbine and moved to Logan, where he is still operating a shop. The wife of Timothy SHIELDS was born in Canada in 1864.

Dr. William A. SHIELDS attended the Logan high school and in 1906 entered the Kansas City Veterinary College. He took the complete three years' course, and after graduating, in the spring of 1909, located in Logan for the practice of his profession. In 1912, when the use of hog serum was in its infancy, Doctor SHIELDS began the work of vaccination for hog cholera. He was the only veterinary in the county who could administer the serum successfully, and in that year he vaccinated no less than twenty-five thousand head of hogs. His reputation as a veterinary surgeon has extended beyond the limits of his own county and he is frequently called into consultation to different parts of the state. He is a member of the Veterinary Association of Missouri Valley, Iowa.

Doctor SHIELDS was married in 1909 to Nellie M. BOWEN, who was born in 1887, in Harrison county, and is a daughter of Edward and Fannie (VORE) BOWEN, early settlers in the county. Doctor SHIELDS and his wife have one son, William C., who was born in 1912.

Doctor SHIELDS has a beautiful home in the northern part of Logan, which he built at a cost of twenty-three hundred dollars. He is independent in politics and votes for the best man irrespective of his political affiliations. He is a member of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows and Modern Woodmen of America. Mr. SHIELDS is still a young man and has only fairly started in his chosen life work. The success, however, which has attended his efforts thus far indicates that he has a useful as well as a prosperous career before him in the county.

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