Bios.Tulsa,OK SMITH, Ralph V. (M.D.)
=======================================================================
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. The submitter has given permission to the USGenWeb Archives to store the file permanently for free access.
======================================================================
Posted by Lee Ann Collins on Tue, 05 Oct 1999
Surname: SMITH, BALL, CROSS, MOHNEY
RALPH V. SMITH, M.D.
VOL. 3, p. 1072 
For the past fifteen years Doctor Smith has been engaged in the practice of his profession in Oklahoma and he has gained secure vantage-place as one of the representative physicians and surgeons of the state in which he established his residence in the territorial regime. Realizing the consistency and value of concentration in his profession, he now gives virtually his entire attention to the surgical branch of the same. His success in this department of practice has been pronounced and unequivocal and as a specialist in surgery he controls a substantial and representative practice, with residence and professional headquarters in the vigorous and thriving City of Tulsa, the metropolis and judicial center of the county of the same name. The doctor is known as a man of high professional attainments and as one who is punctilious in the observance of the ethics of his chosen calling, which he honors alike by his character and efficient services.
On the old homestead farm of his paternal grandfather, in Armstrong County, Pennsylvania, Doctor Smith was born on the 23rd of January, 1871, and he is a son of Dr. Henry L. and Rebecca (MOHNEY ) Smith. His father was born on the same old homestead farm as was he himself, and was a scion of one of the sterling pioneer families of the historic old Buckeye state. Dr. Henry L. Smith was born November 16, 1845, and his death occurred at Guthrie, Oklahoma, November 16, 1898, his wife having been born in Clarion County, Pennsylvania, in 1847, and being now a resident of Kansas City, Missouri. Of their four children three are living: Maude is the wife of James E. BALL, of Kansas City; Dr. Ralph V. was the second in order of birth; Clyde C. died at the age of nineteen years; and Samuel M. is a resident of Guthrie, Oklahoma 
Dr. Henry L. Smith was reared and educated in his native state, and in Columbus, Ohio, he was graduated in the Columbus Medical College, as a member of the class 1878. After thus receiving his degree of Doctor of Medicine he engaged in the practice of his profession at Kelly Station, Armstrong County, Pennsylvania, where he remained until 1885, when he removed with his family to Potwin, Butler County, Kansas, which locality continued to be the stage of his professional endeavors until the opening of Oklahoma Territory to settlement in April, 1889, when he participated in the historic "run," as it is commonly designated, and established his residence at Guthrie, the capital of the new territory, where he became the pioneer physician and surgeon of that section of the present State of Oklahoma. As an able and popular representative of his exacting profession the demands placed upon him were instant and multifarious, with the result that he built up a very large and important practice, his earnest and unselfish labors in his profession having there continued until the close of his noble and useful life as his death having been deeply lamented in the community in which he took up his abode the year prior to the formal organization of Oklahoma Territory. He was prominently concerned in the organization and development of the Oklahoma Territory Medical Association, which formed the nucleus of the present Oklahoma State Medical Association. He was a charter member of Guthrie Lodge, Ancient Free and Accepted Mason and in politics was unswerving in his allegiance to the Democratic Party. 
Dr. Ralph V. Smith was seven years old at the time of the family removal from the old homestead to Kelly Station, Pennsylvania, where he acquired his rudimentary education in the public schools. He was fourteen years of age when he accompanied his parents on their removal to Kansas, where he continued his studies in the public schools and later attended the Kansas State Normal School at Emporia. That he had made good use of his educational advantages afforded him in his youth is shown by the fact that when he was but sixteen years of age he became a successful teacher in a district school in Butler county, Kansas. Through the devotion of three years to the pedagogic profession he was enabled largely to defray the expenses of his course of study in the State Normal School. Coming with his parents to Oklahoma Territory as a young man of eighteen years, he was thereafter employed about one year in the Guthrie National Bank. For the ensuing two years he was identified with the fuel contracting department of one of the railroads operating through Oklahoma and then, in 1895, in consonance with his ambitious purpose and well defined plans, he entered the Missouri Medical College, now the medical department of Washington University, in the metropolis of Missouri, and in this institution he was graduated, cum laude, as a member of the class of 1898 and with the coveted degree of Doctor of Medicine. He forthwith returned to Guthrie and became associated in practice with his father, whose death occurred about nine months later and his ability and personality thereafter enabled him to retain the major part of the large practice controlled by his honored father and also to add materially to his clientage. He was engaged in general practice until 1909, since which time he has specialized in the surgical branch of his profession. The doctor continued his activities in the City of Guthrie until May, 1914, when he found a broader field of endeavor by establishing his residence at Tulsa, where continued and noteworthy success as a surgeon attests his splendid technical equipment, his close application and his personal popularity. For a period of four years Doctor Smith was chief surgeon of the Guthrie Hospital, besides having served as consulting surgeon for the Atchison, Topeka & Santa fe Railroad Company during several years of his residence at Guthrie and also as local surgeon for the Chicago & Rock Island Railroad and the Fort Smith & Western Railroad. Since 1911 he has given most effective and valued service as assistant professor of surgery in the medical department of the University of Oklahoma, his close study and research bringing him practical familiarity in the advances made in both branches of his profession and giving him place as one of the essentially representative members of the same in Oklahoma. The doctor holds membership in the Tulsa County Medical Society, the Oklahoma State Medical Association, the Southwestern Medical Association, and the American Medical Association. In July, 1915, he was elected secretary of the Oklahoma State Board of Medical Examiners. 
In politics Doctor Smith is aligned as a staunch supporter of the cause of the democratic party and as a citizen he is progressive, liberal and public-spirited. He is affiliated with Guthrie Lodge, No. 436, Benevolent & Protective Order of Elks, and in the Masonic fraternity he has received the eighteenth degree of the Ancient Accepted Scottish Rite, his ancient craft affiliation being with Albert Pike Lodge, No. 160, Ancient Free & Accepted Masons, at Guthrie. 
On the 28th of December, 1892, was solemnized the marriage of Doctor Smith to Miss Eva A. CROSS, who was born and reared in Kansas, and the two children of this union are Ethel Maude, and Thelma. 
By Lee Ann Collins, October 4, 1999