Jefferson County Online A part of the IAGenWeb and USGenWeb Projects Who's Who in Jefferson County, 1931 Dr. Samuel K. Davis

"The Fairfield Daily Ledger"
Wednesday, August 19, 1931
Front Page

Who's Who In Jefferson County
By Herbert F. McDougal

SAMUEL K. DAVIS

Dr. S. K. Davis of Libertyville holds that a small town furnishes an ideal vantagepoint from which to view the world and appraise its activities calmly and unhurriedly. For more than forty years he had been practicing that theory along with the active practice of medicine in Libertyville, enjoying life hugely as he goes along, his interests wide, his activities varied.

He has a distinctively literarw (sic) turn of mind and has written much, especially along medical lines. His bookshelves are crowded with volumes that represent an extensive range of subjects. He is especially interested in people, but that does not dwarf a lively interest in botany, and his big yard at home is filled with trees and shrubs, discovered in the woods and transplanted there in order to save them from extinction. In his collection of scores upon scores of native trees and shrubs, may be found specimens that scarcely can be found elsewhere. He arranges them all with an eye to color and design, so that the result is effective.

He was born in Westmoreland County, Penn., September 30, 1863 and was two years old when the family moved west. His father bought a farm, four miles north of Fairfield, which has never been owned since outside the family. He went to the district school and then to the old Quaker academy at Pleasant Plain, attending that institution in 1880-1. The next year he went to Parsons college continuing there for three years. Then he turned to medicine, following the custom of the times by reading for two years under a preceptor. Dr. D. H. Stever, a noted early day physician, was that preceptor. For a year he went to the medical school of the University of Iowa, and then to the College of Physicians and Surgeons in Keokuk, completing his course in 1888.

He looked about him for a short time for a location and soon settled upon Libertyville. The choice proved a happy one, and he has remained there since.

May 22, 1890, he married Miss Nellie Hewett, daughter of Gilbert Hewett, whose home was not far from the Davis farm. The Hewitt farm also continues in the family ownership to this day. They had two children, both trained to their father's profession. Dr. Wyndon Davis, making a special study of contagious diseases, took the scarlet fever in a Detroit hospital and died as a result. That was in 1921. Dr. Austin C. Davis, the other son, is a specialist on the staff of the Mayo clinic in Rochester, Minn.

Dr. Davis is a Methodist, a Mason, for years a Knight of Pythias. He was the first member of the Rotary club to be taken in after the club was chartered. He also holds membership in various medical societies--the Jefferson County, Iowa State, American Medical, the Des Moines Valley and Eastern Iowa, having been the president of the latter two. He is a member of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Genetic Association and the Iowa Academy of Science. Thirty years ago he helped to organize the Libertyville Savings bank and for more than half its existence has been its president.