OBIT: James J. OATMAN, 1900, Altoona, Blair County, PA

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Dr. J. J. Oatman Dies at His Home in This City.

  At 8.30 o'clock last evening Dr. James Johnston Oatman, for fifteen 
years a practicing physician of this city, died at his home, 1700 Fifth 
avenue, after an illness of several weeks.  He had been incapacitated 
from the practice of his profession for three years.
  Deceased was a son of Joseph and Eliza Oatman, deceased, and was born 
December 24, 1839, at Williamsburg.  He was reared and educated 
principally in Indiana county.  In securing an education he encountered 
many obstacles, being obliged to walk two and a quarter miles to 
school.  He persevered, however, gathering information from every 
available source, and before he was 15 years of age he was placed in 
charge of the school during the absence of the regular teacher.  Three 
months before reaching his 15th birthday he was teaching the most 
advanced school in the township, having secured the best certificate 
granted in the county that year.  He taught six terms in Indiana 
county, which brought him down to the beginning of the civil war.
  Like so many of the brave and patriotic young men of that day, he 
turned his face from peaceful employment of civil life and enlisted in 
company B, Eleventh Pennsylvania reserves.  This was in 1861, and he 
served three and one-half years.  At the battle of Peach Orchard, Va., 
on June 29, 1862, he received a serious wound in the head, fracturing 
the skull and exposing the brain, and was left on the field for dead.  
Later he fell into the hands of the confederates and for three months 
he was an inmate of Libbey prison.  After the war he returned to 
Pennsylvania and taught one year as principal of the Ebensburg high 
school.  He then began reading medicine with Dr. R. S. Bunn, of 
Ebensburg, and in 1867 graduated from the Jefferson Medical college and 
located at Carrolltown Cambria county, for the practice of his 
profession.  Later he entered Hahneman Homeopathic college and in 1870 
was graduated from that medical school.  He then practiced at 
Carrolltown and Ebensburg until 1883, when he came to Altoona and built 
up a large practice.  He followed his profession until three years ago, 
when the wounds received in the civil war began to trouble him and 
terminated in a disease which caused his death.
  In 1868 Dr. Oatman was married to Regina H. McDermitt, a daughter of 
Colonel B. A. McDermitt, of Ebensburg, who survives, with the following 
children: William J., R. Milton, Stella G., Charles J., Genevieve K., 
Earnest F. and Ralph B., all at home.  Dr. Oatman was a man who had 
scores of friends who will learn of his death with sincere regret.  He 
was a member of Fred C. Ward post No. 468, Grand Army of the Republic, 
and of the Union Veteran Legion.  The funeral announcements will be 
made later.

Morning Tribune, Tuesday, January 30, 1900

LOCAL BREVITIES.

  The funeral of Dr. James Johnston Oatman will leave his late home, 
1700 Fifth avenue, at 8.45 o'clock Thursday morning and proceed to 
Sacred Heart Catholic church, where mass will be celebrated.  Interment 
will be made in Calvary cemetery.

Morning Tribune, Wednesday, January 31, 1900