Hermann J. G. Koobs, M. D. Biogrpahy


	This biography appears on pages 1186-1192 in "History of Dakota 
	Territory" by George W. Kingsbury, Vol. V (1915) and was 
	scanned, OCRed and edited by Maurice Krueger, mkrueger@iw.net.

	This file may be freely copied by individuals and non-profit 
	organizations for their private use. 

	Any other use, including publication, storage in a retrieval 
	system, or transmission by electronic, mechanical, or other 
	means requires the written approval of the file's author.

	This file is part of the SDGENWEB Archives. If you arrived here inside
	a frame or from a link from somewhere else, our front door is at

	http://usgwarchives.org/sd/sdfiles.htm


				HERMANN J. G. KOOBS, M. D.

	Dr. Hermann J. G. Koobs, of Scotland, is one of the best known 
physicians of the southeastern part of the state. He has made a 
thorough study of his profession, which he has mastered in principle 
and detail, so that his high reputation is but the reward of 
conscientious study and strict application. Dr. Koobs is a native of 
Ostfriesland, Germany, and was reared in the city of Bremen, where he 
obtained his preliminary education. He was an only child of his 
parents, who died during his early infancy, and he was therefore reared 
in the family of C. L. Horn, relatives of his mother, who had only one 
daughter and who adopted him, rearing him as their own son, but leaving 
him his own name. 

	Between the ages of fifteen and sixteen years Dr. Koobs was 
graduated from a realschule, an institution in which the course of 
study is at least equal to that of any high school or academy in this 
country. For a year thereafter he was in the office of a petroleum 
broker, learning the fundamentals of business. From the time when he 
was a small boy, however, he had shown particular talent and liking for 
the study of physics and chemistry and desired to become an apothecary. 
As positions in German apothecary shops are very difficult to obtain he 
saw no opportunity of being able to follow his choice of a life work 
there. An uncle in America wrote him that it would be easy for him to 
achieve his desire along that line in this country. Moreover, he was 
unwilling to serve for three years in the German army and as he could 
get papers of dismissal from the German government at that time, being 
then seventeen years of age, he decided to come to the United States, 
the desire to carry out his plans of a life work and to avoid military 
service in Germany constituting the motives which brought him to 
America, sailing from Bremerhaven on the North German Lloyd Steamship 
Oder on the 27th of January, 1885. The voyage was a rather rough one 
and during a heavy sea when he tried to walk across the ship's deck a 
big wave swept him off his feet, carrying him to the railing and taking 
with it his cap and giving him a thorough drenching. It was a narrow 
escape, but at length he reached New York in safety in the month of 
February. He also experienced considerable hardship on his first 
railroad trip in this country. The weather was severely cold and his 
ticket having been purchased over the North West Shore & Buffalo 
Railroad, he traveled through a region where a great deal of snow had 
fallen. When near Buffalo, New York, the train became stuck in a 
snowdrift so that the passengers had to transfer, walking some distance 
in order to reach the other train. Not being properly clothed for that 
climate, Dr. Koobs nearly froze his ears and fingers. His train was 
again delayed at Erie for about twenty-four hours, for the heavy ice 
interfered with the passage of the ferry boat with which the train made 
connection. Eight days had elapsed from the time he left New York until 
he reached his destination — Grundy Center, Iowa. As he had neither 
sufficient money nor food to last for such a length of time he was 
almost famished when he reached the end of his journey. As a result of 
this exposure, lack of food and other hardships he suffered a severe 
attack of climate fever, from which he did not recover for several 
weeks. Among the varied experiences which have come to him in later 
life was another that had to do with a narrow escape from a railroad 
accident. It occurred at the time of the World's Columbian Exposition 
in Chicago, when he was returning to his home over the Maple Leaf Road. 
There was a broken rail between Kent and Stockton, Illinois, which 
caused the train to plunge down a twelve-foot embankment. The car in 
which Dr. Koobs was a passenger, landed on its roof, so that he found 
himself standing upon his head in the aisle, and he gripped both seats 
firmly in order to keep from being thrown to the floor and possibly, as 
some were, through the window. As it was he escaped unhurt except for a 
little sprain of his wrists. 

	Dr. Koobs made his initial step in business circles of America by 
obtaining a position as clerk in the drug store of Moffett Brothers at 
Grundy Center, Iowa, going to work as soon as his health would permit. 
After three and a half years in that connection he engaged in business 
for himself as a partner of J. P. DeNeui at George, Iowa, a new town on 
the Illinois Central extension from Cherokee to Sioux Falls, Iowa, 
theirs being the first drug store at that place. Realizing that further 
study would be an advantage to him, Dr. Koobs sold out at George and 
entered the Illinois School of Pharmacy in the fall of 1889, receiving 
honorable mention during the graduating exercises for good work done 
there. He worked for a while in a Chicago drug store as prescription 
clerk, becoming licensed as a registered pharmacist in the states of 
Iowa, Illinois and South Dakota, and was engaged in the drug business 
at various places altogether for about twelve years. While owning a 
drug store at Paullina, Iowa, he became interested in the watch and 
jewelry business and in order to better understand this went to Peoria, 
Illinois, taking a course in the Parsons Horological Institute. While 
there he also took up as a specialty the study of optics and from that 
time was greatly interested in the errors of refraction and diseases of 
the eye. This, together with the wish of Dr. Heffelfinger, of Grundy 
Center, who took a great liking to him when he was working for Moffett 
Brothers and who insisted that he was especially well qualified for the 
profession of medicine and undertook to give him instruction along that 
line, determined Dr. Koobs to prepare for medical practice and to that 
end he entered the Northwestern University Medical school with credits 
in chemistry, materia medica and physiology. While pursuing his course 
there he served as student assistant in the department of physiology 
under Professor W. S. Hall for two years and was graduated in June, 
1902, with the M. D. degree.  

	On completing his course Dr. Koobs returned to Scotland, South 
Dakota, where he had previously been interested in the drug and jewelry 
business with V. B. Diehl and has since enjoyed a very extensive and 
lucrative practice. During 1909 he spent about six months in Oklahoma 
on account of his health and while there took the medical state board 
examination at Muskogee, passing with a general average of ninety-five 
and a fraction per cent according to the report sent by the secretary 
of the state board. He has pursued post-graduate courses in the Chicago 
Clinic and the Illinois School of Electro-Therapeutics and keeps in 
touch with the advance of his profession by constant study and by 
conference with other physicians and surgeons. He has a well selected 
medical library of over four hundred volumes and one of the best 
equipped offices in the southeastern part of the state, enabling him to 
perform his professional service in a most efficient manner. He is 
especially well qualified for diseases of the eye, ear, nose and 
throat, specializing along that line, in which he now enjoys a large 
operative practice. He has an office nurse, who assists him in his work 
and this, together with a complete office equipment and his liberal 
professional education, enables him to give his patients most excellent 
care and treatment. He has become especially widely known for his 
success in ophthalmology. In addition to an extensive private practice 
he is the present superintendent of the Bon Homme county board of 
health; is secretary and treasurer of State and County Medical Health 
Officers Association of South Dakota; is local United States pension 
examining surgeon; is surgeon for the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul 
Railway Company; and medical examiner for about twenty different life 
insurance companies, including the Northwestern Mutual of Milwaukee; 
the New York Life; the Provident Savings of New York; the Prudential of 
Newark, New Jersey; the Travelers of Hartford, Connecticut; the Penn 
Mutual of Philadelphia; and the Merchants and Bankers of Des Moines. He 
is a member in good standing of the American Medical Association; the 
South Dakota State Medical Association; the Yankton District Medical 
Society; the Sioux Valley Medical Society; and the Academy of American 
Railway Surgeons. He is an ax-president of the Yankton District Medical 
Society and in 1915 is serving as vice president of both the Sioux 
Valley Medical Society and the South Dakota State Medical Association. 
He has prepared and read several papers before most of these societies 
on scientific subjects and has delivered several public addresses on 
medicine and health topics.  

	Dr. Koobs was married in Paullina, Iowa, August 31, 1890, to Miss 
May E. Donnan, then a schoolteacher, who was born in Wisconsin and is a 
daughter of Alexander and Rachel (Perkins) Donnan. While Dr. and Mrs. 
Koobs have no children of their own they have legally adopted a son — 
Valentine Hall Koobs.  

	The Doctor is prominent in Masonic circles, still holding 
membership in the blue lodge at Paullina, Iowa, where he first joined 
the order. He has taken the thirty-second degree of the Scottish Rite 
in the consistory at Yankton and is a member of the Mystic Shrine at 
Sioux Falls. He is also a member of and examining physician for the 
Modern Woodmen of America and the Royal Neighbors. Both he and his wife 
are prominent in the Eastern Star. The Doctor is an active member of 
the Presbyterian church and superintendent of its Sunday school. His 
political allegiance is given the republican party w here national 
issues are involved, but he takes no part in politics aside from the 
exercise of his right of franchise and at local elections votes without 
regard to party ties.  

	Because of his close application to business, his intolerance of 
improper conduct and his independent nature he often gives one who is 
not well acquainted with him the impression of lacking in sociability 
and of being unduly haughty and reserved, but the impression soon 
vanishes when one comes to know him better, for he is of a genial 
nature, tender-hearted, fun-loving and hospitable to a fault. He is 
always intensely interested in anything that will make for the 
betterment of his town or community or will promote the welfare of his 
fellow men and he is especially fond of and interested in children and 
young people. Those who know him best hold him in the highest esteem.