Ringgold county sends a young man to the house this year in the Hon. P[ercy] L. PRENTIS, M.D., of Delphos. He is a young man who has made his own way in the world, and so far has been eminently successful. Dr. PRENTIS was born in a log cabin, on a farm, in Miama (sic) county, Indiana, July 28, 1870. In the fall of 1880 he came with his parents, in a lumber wagon, to Iowa, locating on a farm near Delphos. Four years later his parents died. His mother was killed in a run-away buggy accident at the Ringgold County Fair in 1884. His father, ill with lung fever [pneumonia] died a few months laster in 1885, making it necessary for him to go back to Ohio to live with relatives. While going to school he worked for money to pay his board, finally becoming, in 1888, an honored graduate of Bedford high school. Two years later he became a graduate of Euclid business college, in Cleveland, Ohio. He then entered the University of medicine and Surgery in the same city, graduating in 1893 with high honors, and receiving first prize for good scholarship. Immediately he returned to Delphos and commenced the practice of medicine. His first vote was cast for Wm. McKINLEY in 1891.

Dr. PRENTIS was married, shortly after graduating, to Miss Anna PFEFFER. They have one child, Roscoe Johnson PRENTIS, aged seven months. The doctor prossesses all the traits and abilities for making a first-class representative and has already proven his aptitude in that direction. He possesses rare gifts as an orator, and during the campaign spoke in different parts of his county, his speeches receiving favorable comment everywhere and from all parties. He is a member of and faithful worker in the Church of Christ.

SOURCE:  "State News Items" Iowa Medical Journal: Directory of Iowa Physicians and surgeons Vol. 1. No. 11. Pp. 580-81. The Kenyon Printing & Mfg. Co. Des Moines. February, 1896.

Photographs contributed by Julie Watts

Transcription by Sharon R. Becker, May of 2009