Washington Co., AR - Biographies - Dr. Thomas G. Welch

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Dr. Thomas G. Welch is a member of the medical firm of Welch & 
Summers, of Elm Springs, Ark., and was born in Madison County, Mo., in 
1837, being a son of Henry R. and Eleanor M. (Hooser) Welch, who were 
born in Tennessee and Kentucky in 1810 and 1818, and died in Missouri 
in 1847 and 1874, respectively. They were worthy people, farmers by 
occupation, and were the parents of two sons and five daughters. Dr. 
Thomas Welch was reared in Cape Girardeau County, Mo., and after 
attending the common schools entered the Bloomfield Academy, which 
institution he attended for some time, acquiring a good, practical, 
business education. After reading and practicing medicine for some 
time he entered the American Medical College at St. Louis, Mo., and 
began practicing his profession in Ripley County, Mo., moving to 
Randolph County, Ark., in 1871. Afterward he removed to Washington 
County, and since 1885 has been a practicing physician of Elm Springs, 
and has a large and lucrative practice. In 1869 he was married, in 
Ripley County, Mo., to Miss Sarah I. Rife, a native of [p.1038] 
Tennessee born in 1847, and by her became the father of eight children 
three boys and five girls: H. Aora, W. Aretes. Annie, Gussie, Maud and 
Claud (twins), Emma and Lelia. Since 1873 Dr. Welch has been a 
minister of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, being ordained 
deacon in 1877, and elder in 1884 and the last year. Each month he 
preaches once at the following places: Elm Springs, White Oak School-
house and Smith's Chapel. He is Deputy Grand Master in the A. F. & A. 
M., and in his political views is a Democrat. During the late Civil 
War he was in Jeff. Thompson's State Guards, and after it was 
disbanded joined Marmaduke's cavalry, and was captured in Kansas and 
taken to St. Louis. He was afterward sent to Cincinnati, and thence to 
Johnson's Island, where he was kept until the close of the war.