Reeves,+Dr.+James+Edmund

//by Kate Quinn// //This was written as a presentation at the Cemetary Tour sponsored by the Friends of Wheeling.//

Welcome ladies and gentlemen,let me introduce myself. My name is Anna Reeves. I taught in the city of Wheeling for over 50 years. My, I miss those days and all my “children”. Madison School on Wheeling Island was my favorite and I taught there for many, many years, but I’m not here to talk about me. I want to tell my father’s story. He is the one who deserves to be remembered! My goodness, his story is a remarkable one that the people of Wheeling should know. He was born in 1829 in Rappahanock County Virginia where his father was a tailor and Methodist Minister. Father recalled his school days in Culpepper with fondness. Being the oldest son, his father was determined that he would learn the tailor’s trade.. When he was just sixteen his father was assigned to the pastorate at Philippi, Virginia and his family went by coach down the National Road to their new home. On the stagecoach was a young doctor named Thomas Kennedy who in those few days was able to persuade young James to be a doctor too. From that moment on, Father wanted nothing more than to become a doctor. Though his father did not approve.

When he got to Philippi, his father insisted that he become a tailor and so he worked long hours. But he told me that late at night and very early in the morning, he would study borrowed medical books by lamplight. He also taught himself Latin, French, and German! Eventually, he earned enough to attend medical school at Hampden Sydney College, in Richmond.

Father set up his medical practice in Philippi, and when an epidemic of typhoid broke out among the workers on the covered bridge, he was there to help them. His sister, Anna, for whom I am named, had married Granville Jarvis and lived just down the road in Webster, Virginia. She had lost so many children to illness, that she persuaded Father to help her teach the local women how to stop these terrible deaths. Goodness, they didn’t even wash the babies diapers in those days and the wells were contaminated….to say nothing of those terrible outhouses, breeding grounds for disease. My cousin Anna Jarvis founded a holiday to honor mothers….do you still celebrate it?

Eventually, in 1860, my father moved the family to Philadelphia where he graduated from medical school and then he set up practice near Fairmont. It was during our time there that he invited leading physicians from around the state to meet for a conference that set up the State Medical Society of West Virginia.

When I was ten, father remarried as my mother had died at a young age and we moved to Wheeling in 1868 where we had the most beautiful house on Chapline Street. His third wife Frances Starett is buried next to him there. By his side is my brother Joseph who died of illness when he was just 21. My brother Charles and sister Nan have both passed on also.

My father, James Edmund Reeves, became the first full time public health officer of the City of Wheeling and served on the City Council for many years. He wrote many reports on public health in Wheeling describing the city in detail. He also wrote the bill that created the State Board of Health of West Virginia. He was so busy in those days with all of his writing and duties, yet found time to found the American Public Health Association, serve on the Judicial Committee of the American Medical Association and the state Board of Health. In 1876 he organized the very first International Medical Congress held in Philadelphia. Dozens of prestigious doctors from all over the world attended.

Many nights I found father at his microscope making slides or at his typewriter preparing publications. His slides were very much in demand and his publications got him invited to England by Queen Victoria where she gave him a reception at Buckingham Palace and medals for his service to her troops.

But Father suffered from asthma and so he had to leave Wheeling for Chattanooga, Tennessee where the air was much better for him. He died from a liver tumor and when the doctors of Wheeling heard of his plight, eight of them took the train to his bedside to see if anything could be done. He was held in such esteem by the Wheeling doctors. But nothing could be done and he died there in 1896, but his wish to be buried here in Greenwood was honored and it seemed like the whole town turned out for his funeral at St. Matthews.

Oh, how I miss him! Please don’t let him be forgotten! I am so proud to lie by his side for eternity. Yes, I know, I have no headstone, but every member of my family was gone by the time I died in 1942 and I had no money to spend on such a remembrance. My legacy is all those children that I taught.

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