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1901–1907, at Howard's strength
A generation later the record seats two physicians in Osceola within a year of each other, and this time they stayed. Howard's second volume carries both sketches, banked by the People leg and printed here at that strength. Dr. J. B. Seaman, born at Clyde, New York, 21 June 1864, graduated from the Medical College of Indiana in 1900, and "in 1901 came to Osceola and entered upon practice"; he married Margaret Morgan on 17 May 1904. Dr. Louis Proudfit, born in Elkhart County 10 February 1876, took the same college's degree in 1902 and "located at Osceola immediately"; he married Grace Sawyer in 1906, and Howard notes his mother, Emeline (Bancroft) Proudfit, "of Osceola." Two regular-school graduates arriving in 1901 and 1902 mark the profession's new footing: where Batchelder's 1856 degree came from a Keokuk college of the eclectic era, the 1900 and 1902 men are Indianapolis-trained, state-licensed practitioners of the licensing age, and a village of Osceola's size — some hundreds of people, with a township of thousands behind them — could hold two. One more name stands in the record at a lesser strength and is printed at it: a Dr. W. A. Pierce "of Osceola" appears in an 1893 county directory line the People leg banked as an unverified bonus, neither confirmed nor placed in the succession by anything.
Sources
- Howard (1907), vol. 2, p. 928 (Seaman; Proudfit), via the People leg's banking.
- People leg (the 1893 Pierce directory line, unverified).