Bertrand M. Hart, M. D. Biography


	This biography appears on pages 807-808 in "History of Dakota 
	Territory" by George W. Kingsbury, Vol. V (1915) and was 
	scanned, OCRed and edited by Maurice Krueger, mkrueger@iw.net.

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				BERTRAND M. HART, M. D. 

	Dr. Bertrand M. Hart is a successful physician and surgeon 
practicing at Blunt and is also engaged in the drug business there. He 
was born at Beloit, Wisconsin, November 19, 1876, and is a son of 
George D. and Lucy (Tuxtberry) Hart. The father was born in the 
southern part of New York on the 29th of May, 1846, and the mother's 
birth occurred in northern Pennsylvania, June 6, 1849. In early manhood 
George D. Hart followed the butcher's trade but after removing to South 
Dakota in 1892 he engaged in farming near Doland, Spink county, until 
1902, when, feeling that he had accumulated sufficient of this world's 
goods, he retired from active life and removed to Beloit, Wisconsin, 
where he is still living. During the Civil war he served in Company F, 
Seventeenth Wisconsin Regiment, and was at the front for three years. 
He was wounded and for some time was confined in a hospital. To him and 
his wife, who is also living, were born fourteen children, of whom the 
subject of this review is the fifth in order of birth. 

	Bertrand M. Hart received his secondary education in the high 
school at Webster, South Dakota, and after leaving that institution 
attended the school of pharmacy of the State Agricultural College at 
Brookings, South Dakota, from which he received the Ph. G. and Bachelor 
of Science degrees. Having decided upon the medical profession as a 
life work he continued his study in the medical college of Northwestern 
University in Chicago and in 1905 received his M. D. degree. Since that 
time he has taken a number of post-graduate courses as he realizes the 
necessity of constant study if he is to keep abreast of the advancement 
in medical science. His has been a life of intense activity and the 
educational advantages which he has enjoyed have been won by his own 
labor. When but seven years of age he began herding cattle for a 
neighbor five miles from home and was so engaged until he was thirteen 
years old. He then worked as a farm hand and for three seasons drove 
horses for a threshing outfit. When sixteen years of age he was 
employed on a ranch and thus earned the money which enabled him to 
attend the high school at Webster. Each year for eleven years he spent 
from nine to eleven months in school and earned every penny of the 
money with which to pay his expenses, receiving no assistance whatever 
and never borrowing. 

	Following his graduation from medical college Dr. Hart located in 
Blunt and in the intervening years has built up a large and lucrative 
practice and has also gained the complete confidence of his colleagues. 
He is at present serving as surgeon for the Northwestern Railroad. He 
is also engaged in the drug business in Blunt and the same good 
judgment and energy which enabled him to pay his own way through school 
have gained him a gratifying measure of success in business. He 
believes firmly in the growth and prosperity of the state and has 
invested in South Dakota land, owning a valuable farm adjoining Blunt 
and also considerable land southeast of the town. 

	Dr. Hart was married on the 19th of November, 1907, to Miss Edna 
Church Shearer, a native of Tipton, Iowa. Her parents, John and Sarah 
Ellen (Church) Shearer, were born respectively in Edinburgh, Scotland, 
December 2, 1828, and in Muscatine, Iowa, November 24, 1841. The 
father, who was a miller by trade, emigrated to the United States when 
nineteen years of age and located at Tipton, Cedar county, Iowa. He 
continued to reside there until 1883, when he came to South Dakota with 
his family and located upon a homestead near Highmore, where he still 
resides. He has followed general farming and has gained a competence. 
Mrs. Hart, who is the seventh of the eight children born to her 
parents, received a liberal education. She was graduated from the high 
school at Highmore and subsequently entered the South Dakota Wesleyan 
College at Mitchell, which conferred upon her the degree of Bachelor of 
Arts on the completion of the prescribed course. To Dr. and Mrs. Hart 
has been born a son, Maynard Sterling, whose birth occurred on the 14th 
of February, 1910. 

	The Doctor is a republican and is serving as vice president of 
the county board of health. He is a member of the Fourth District 
Medical Society and the State Medical Society and a life member of the 
Surgeons Club of Rochester, Minnesota, and fellow in the American 
Medical Association. He is quite prominent in local fraternal circles 
as he belongs to the Masonic lodge and to the Mystic Shrine as well. He 
has served as master of the blue lodge and is patron of the local 
chapter of the Eastern Star and associate grand patron of the Eastern 
Star of South Dakota. His life has been characterized by unusual 
determination and enterprise and he has carried forward to successful 
completion everything that he has undertaken. He is recognized both as 
a skillful physician and as an efficient business man and is one of the 
valued citizens of Blunt.