Robert Hodges Blackman, M. D., Catahoula Parish, Louisiana
Submitted by Mike Miller
Source:
Date: Aug. 2001
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Robert Hodges Blackman, M. D.  Some of the most assured ability and 
soundest attainments in the field of surgery are credited to Dr. Robert 
Hodges Blackman among the surgeons of Louisiana.  Doctor Blackman graduated 
from medical college thirty years ago, and his most important work in 
surgery has been performed since he located at Shreveport, where he has 
offices in the Ward Building.

Doctor Blackman was born in Catahoula Parish, Louisiana, January 7, 1871.  
He acquired a liberal education, attending the Arcadia Male and Female 
College three years, the Louisiana State University one year, and in 1894 
graduated from the University of Louisville, Kentucky, taking his degree 
in medicine.  He was the first graduate physician to serve as an interne 
in the Shreveport Charity Hospital, where he held an interneship during 
1894-95.  He also has done post-graduate study in New York City, Philadelphia 
and Chicago.  Doctor Blackman for eight years acted as division surgeon for 
the Missouri-Pacific Lines, during which the he conducted a private hospital at Monroe. 

He surrendered this successful position in order to avail himself of the 
advantages of the Mayo Brothers clinic at Rochester, Minnesota, where he 
spent two years on the staff.  He is one of very few doctors who have given 
up as highly lucrative a practice and railway surgeonship for two years of 
intensive, post-graduate study.  While with the Mayos he studied diagnosis 
and surgery, and became a fellow of the Mayo Clinic.

Leaving Rochester, he established his home at Shreveport nine years ago, 
where his practice has been confined to surgery and general practice.  He 
is a member of the local Shreveport Medical Association, the Louisiana 
State, American Medical, Southern Medical and Tri-State Medical Associations, 
and the American Congress of Medicine.  He is on the staff of the Schumpert 
Memorial Hospital.

Doctor Blackman married, February 18, 1891, Miss Birdie Scott, daughter of 
the late Dr. J. J. Scott.  They have three children Miss Leola; John Scott 
Blackman, born in 1911; and William Mayo Blackman, born in 1915, while his 
father was on the staff of the Mayo Clinic at Rochester.  Doctor Blackman's 
daughter, Miss Leola, finished her junior college course, at the Ward-Belmont 
School for Girls at Nashville, also attended Columbia University, and is a 
member of the class of 1915 in the University of Wisconsin at Madison, 
taking the Bachelor of Arts degree.  She spent one year in European travel 
with her teachers.

Doctor Blackman is a Knight Templar and thirty-second degree Scottish Rite 
Mason and Shriner; a member of the Knights of Pythias, the Benevolent and 
Protective Order of Elks and Woodmen of the World.  He is a member of the 
Country Club, charter member of the New City Club and was organizer and 
first president of the Shreveport Civilian Club, in which he takes a very 
active interest.  He also belongs to the Presbyterian Church.

Doctor Blackman is well known in his community for his many charities, 
being especially interested in the welfare of ambitious young people to 
whom a little timely aid means so much.  One of his most interesting and 
helpful methods of assisting the young is an endowment fund which he has 
maintained for several years with a local business college, whereby many 
boys and girls have developed into fine business men and women.

Doctor Blackman was largely instrumental in the inception of the interest 
taken by the Civitan Club in arranging for the musical education, at 
Rochester, New York, of Miss Lois Enid Will, a Shreveport girl who developed 
unusual talent, and through the endowment fund maintained by the Civitan 
Club of Shreveport is assured of all the advantages afforded by the 
conservatories of music.  These instances, as well as many others known 
only to the recipients thereof, show a generous nature and furnish proof 
of the precept that, "'tis not the good that comes to us, but the good 
that comes to others through us that constitutes the true measure of human 
worth."

A History of Louisiana, (vol. 2), pp. 348-349, by Henry E. Chambers.  
Published by The American Historical Society, Inc., Chicago and New York, 
1925.