Leonard C. Mead, M. D. Biography


	This biography appears on pages 695-696 in "History of South 
	Dakota" by Doane Robinson, Vol. I (1904) and was scanned, 
	OCRed and edited by Maurice Krueger, mkrueger@iw.net.

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	LEONARD C. MEAD, M. D., superintendent of the State Hospital for 
the Insane at Yankton, has won a high position in his profession. It is 
not fulsome flattery to say that he is one of the most capable and most 
distinguished physicians in the northwest. He is the son of Ezra and 
Sylvia (Barber) Mead and few parents have been blessed with a more 
loving and a more loyal son. The father was born in northeastern New 
York in 1821, but grew up in the western portion of that state, where 
his father died when he was nine years of age, leaving the care of a 
large family to the widowed mother. Young Ezra from the first assumed a 
share of his mother's responsibility and by unremitting industry 
contributed to the support and comfort of his mother and brothers and 
sisters. In consequence his opportunities for education were limited, 
but he made the most of the common school privileges which were at 
hand. Soon after attaining his majority he settled at Columbus, 
Columbia county, Wisconsin, where he secured a farm and followed 
agricultural pursuits. In 1886 he sold his interests there and removed 
to Elkton, Brookings county, South Dakota, where he died on August 21, 
1897.  

	Ezra Mead was a man of exceptional intelligence and one who 
enjoyed the respect and high esteem of all acquaintances. Originally he 
was a staunch Whig and in the progress of events he became an equally 
zealous Republican, and though active in support of his political 
principles and one whose advice was sought in party councils, he was 
never an office seeker or office holder. He read and thought much; was 
deeply informed upon many subjects and possessed the faculty of 
expressing his views clearly and concisely and in controversy, of which 
he was fond, sought to convince his opponents by courteous and 
gentlemanly argument rather than by denouncing their positions. He was 
especially noted for strong convictions and decided opinions, but never 
assumed a position he could not maintain, nor surrendered a principle 
when convinced it was right.  

	Mrs. Mead, the mother, who is enjoying a serene old age, is a 
native of Massachusetts, and is passing her declining years with her 
children, of whom, Henry, of Loup City, Nebraska, Leonard, the subject 
of this article, Mrs. Adalia Young, of Elkton, South Dakota, and Ida, 
the wife of Albert Parks, of Kent City, Michigan, survive.  

	Leonard C. Mead was born on the family homestead, near Columbus, 
Wisconsin, January 18, 1856. He spent his early years after the manner 
of most Badger farmer boys, the summer time helping in the fields and 
the winter in the district school. He was enabled to complete the high-
school course at Columbus, and then entered the State University at 
Madison, where he defrayed his expenses by teaching, having undertaken 
that occupation at seventeen years of age, at first in country schools 
but after two years becoming principal of the Rio schools for three 
years and also for a time filling a position in the grammar department 
of the Columbus schools. While teaching he took up the study of 
medicine in the office of Dr. S. O. Burrington, of Columbus, and 
afterward pursued his studies in the office of Dr. Robert W. Earl, of 
that city. Both were able preceptors and he made such progress that in 
the fall of 1878 he entered Rush Medical College, from which he 
graduated in the spring of 1881, defraying his expenses during the 
period, by teaching during the vacations.  

	After graduation Dr. Mead established himself in practice at Good 
Thunder, Minnesota, but a year later removed to Elk Point, South 
Dakota, where during eight years he established so excellent a 
reputation that on the 5th of May, 1890, he was called to the assistant 
superintendency of the State Insane Hospital and after a year devoted 
to the peculiar requirements of the position was promoted to the 
superintendency. Up to this date, May, 1891, the hospital had been a 
political football, kicked about to reward political services, and for 
a long time had averaged one superintendent per year, the work 
inaugurated by one being sure to be undone by his successor. It was Dr. 
Mead's first business to organize the institution upon a business and 
professional basis and lift it from the degrading domain of party 
politics, and he has brought it to a position which bears favorable 
comparison with the leading hospitals of the kind in any country. He 
possesses superb executive ability and the happy faculty of directing 
the movement of the large number of employee and officers without 
friction. His retentive memory and painstaking methods give him an 
intimate knowledge of each one of the many hundreds of inmates and at 
any moment he is prepared to recite the history and present condition 
of any one of them. He has made a close and critical study of nervous 
diseases and insanity in all of their forms, and to perfect himself in 
these specialties he took a post-graduate course in the New York 
Polyclinic, in 1899-1900, devoting particular attention to neurology 
and microscopy. Through long and successful experience and special 
preparation Dr. Mead is now recognized authority upon all nervous 
diseases and as such is frequently called in consultation by the ablest 
physicians in the west.  

	Dr. Mead is equally as successful as a business man as he is as a 
physician and executive and is especially fertile in mechanical, 
engineering and architectural expedients and plans for the advancement 
of the institution. and it has been his good fortune to be permitted to 
put most of his plans into execution. Under his management and as a 
consequence of his long official career the hospital plant has been 
largely remodeled and of course vastly increased in capacity, the 
additions made under his direction considerably exceeding the extent of 
the original plant. In the location and planning of new buildings he 
has been unhampered and his opportunity for impressing his 
individuality upon the place has been limited only by the ability of 
the state to provide means, and the state has not been niggardly in 
supplying structures and all modern appliances for the most favorable 
treatment of its unfortunate wards.  

	Dr. Mead is a Mason, belonging to the Ancient and Accepted 
Scottish Rite and the Mystic Shrine, and he is also identified with the 
Ancient Order United Workmen and the Benevolent and Protective Order of 
Elks. He is a member of the South Dakota Medical Society, the Sioux 
Valley Medical Society, the American Medico-Psychological Association 
and other professional organizations, local and general. He was married 
in June, 1886, to Miss Matilda Frazer Gardener, of Sparta, Wisconsin, 
and their home is delightful and ideal. They have not been blessed with 
children, but have opened their hearts and home to a little boy and 
girl who are receiving all of the care and affection which devoted 
parents might lavish upon them.