Biographical Sketch of James W. Vance, M. D., St. Joseph, Buchanan County, MO >From "History of Buchanan County, Missouri, Published 1881, St. Joseph Steam Printing Company, Printers, Binders, Etc., St. Joseph, Missouri. ********************************************************************** James W. Vance, M. D., was born in Abbeville, South Carolina, September 16, 1845. His father, James Kincaid Vance, was a cotton planter. The Vance family are of Scotch-Irish extraction, and are among the earliest settlers of the county, Dr. Vance's great grandfather being a well known planter in the state before the Revolutionary War. His mother was a daughter of Dr. Watson, also of South Carolina. The doctor is the eldest of a family of thirteen children, seven sons and six daugh- ters. Of these ten survive. He received an excellent education at the State Military Academy in Charleston, and during the last three years of the war served in the cadet corps in the Confederate Army. He early resolved to make the profession of medicine the pursuit of his life, and determining to acquire a knowledge of the science in the first medical school of the world, he visited Scotland, and in 1866 entered the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of the University of Edinburgh. After four years of unremitting application, he was graduated in 1870 with honors in a class of one hundred and fifty. He then returned to the United States and located in Greenville, South Carolina, where he practiced with great success for several years. In 1880 he moved to St. Joseph, Missouri, his present home, where estab- lishing himself, he was soon in possession of a lucrative practice. On December 2, 1866, Dr. Vance was married to Miss Susan Shelby Vance, daughter of William L. Vance, Esq., of Memphis, Tennessee. They have one child living, a daughter, Leta. Mrs. Vance is known in the liter- ary world as the authoress of a popular satire on New Orleans and Memphis society entitled "Lois Carroll; or Her Two Selves", besides many poems of acknowledged merit. ==================================================================== USGENWEB NOTICE: In keeping with our policy of providing free information on the Internet, data may be used by non-commercial entities, as long as this message remains on all copied material. These electronic pages may NOT be reproduced in any format for profit or for presentation by other persons or organizations. Persons or organizations desiring to use this material for purposes other than stated above must obtain the written consent of the file contributor. This file was contributed for use in the USGenWeb Archives by: Penny Harrell ====================================================================