DR. JOHN G. RISHEL
John G. Rishel, M. D., was born in Lewisburg, Union county, Pennsylvania. When he was nine years of age his father, Benjamin Rishel, settled in Stephenson county, Illinois, where his aged parents still reside. His early education was limited to the village schools with attendance at the Freeport high school, also the Warren Collegiate Institute, all in Illinois. During his time of study he taught a number of terms of school in northern Illinois, achieving a desirable reputation as a successful teacher. April 20, 1861, he was among the first to respond to our country's call for three months volunteers. This service being full before his company was organized, he was on the 24th day of May, 1861, mustered into the United States service for three years, or during the war, as a member of company G, Fifteenth Illinois Regiment Infantry. In the fall of 1861, while in the malarial regions of Missouri, he contracted disease from which he has never fully recovered and was discharged on account of said disability. Dr. Rishel, following the time of his discharge from the array, and still suffering from disease of lungs, entered the office of Dr. N. Prentice, of Freeport, Illinois, as student and patient. In the winter of 1863, he attended a course of lectures at Rush Medical College, Chicago. Subsequently at Hahnemann Medical College, Chicago, where he graduated as a homoeopathist, March 9, 1866. January 31, 1865, he again enlisted to enter the medical department as hospital steward of the Forty-sixth Illinois regiment, was then detailed as acting hospital steward in the first division hospital Thirteenth Army Corps, and after taking of Mobile was assigned a position as dispensing druggist in the dispensary of the United States Marine general hospital, at Mobile, serving as such, until time of his final discharge. After completing his medical education, in 1866, he commenced practice in Waterloo, Iowa, remaining one year, then moved to Monroe, Wisconsin. In 1869 he returned to Waterloo and continued in practice there until the summer of 1873. His health again failing him he decided upon a change of climate, coming at that time into Cass county, and finding an appreciable difference in the climate of south western Iowa, the following spring he took up his permanent abode in Lewis, and has since been engaged in the practice of his profession, when his impaired health would permit. As a practitioner, his success has won for him a remunerative practice. Dr. Rishel is a member of Hahnemann State Medical Association, of Iowa, also a graduate of the Hahnemann Medical Institute, of Chicago, and was in 1866, elected to the chair of special pathology and diagnosis in said institute. April 11,1866, he married Almira Switzer, of Waterloo. To them were born four children--John Benjamin, May Maud, Austin Eugene and Herman Dwight Rishel, the three eldest of whom are still living. Both he and his wife are members of the Congregational church.
Contributed by Lisa Varnes-Rex from "History of Cass County, Iowa. Together With Sketches of its Towns, Villages and Townships, Educational, Civil, Military and Political History: Portraits of Prominent Persons, and Biographies of Old Settlers and Representative Citizens." Springfield, Ill.: Continental Historical Company, 1884, pp. 396-397.
