Coryell County Texas Archives Biographies.....Nixon, M D, Udolphus H. " U. H. " November 21, 1864 - November 11, 1903 ************************************************ Copyright. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://www.usgwarchives.net/tx/txfiles.htm ************************************************ File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by: Valerie ( Johnson ) Freeman http://www.genrecords.net/emailregistry/vols/00009.html#0002248 September 19, 2010, 1:54 pm Author: See Below Texas State Journal of Medicine Published Monthly by The State Medical Association of Texas Edited by Ira Carleton Chase, A. M., M. D. - Fort Worth, Texas Volume I - July 1905 - April 1906 January 1906 - pg. 242-244 TRANSACTIONS. STATE MEDICAL ASSOCIATION OF TEXAS. HOUSTON MEMORIAL EXERCISES. The Memorial Exercises at Houston were held on Wednesday, April 26th. at 9:30, in Turner's Hall. Dr. J. A. McGee, of Rice, was Chairman of the Committee on Memorial Resolutions. No memorial exercises had been held for two years. Twenty- eight members of the State Association during this time had passed away. Dr. McGee had labored with loving care in collecting the biographical sketches to be presented on this occasion. To his great disappointment and the Association's regret he was unable to be present, and his illness terminated fatally a few weeks later. The exercises were opened by prayer, followed by impressive music rendered by the Houston male quartette. The Secretary then read the following obituaries, and during the reading photographs of the departed members were thrown upon the canvas by the stereopticon: U. H. NIXON, M. D. Dr. U. H. Nixon was born near Campbellton, Georgia, November 21, 1864, and came to Texas in 1886. He attended the State Medical College at Galveston one year, and afterwards attended the Barnes Medical College, from which institution he graduated in 1893. He opened an office at Killeen, Texas, and soon succeeded in building up a good practice. In 1901 he was appointed as a medical missionary by the General Board of Missions of the Methodist Church, South, and was sent to Monterey, Mexico. In that city he gave himself without stint to his work, and soon succeeded in establishing a most promising hospital practice. In 1903, during a terrible yellow fever scourge prevailing in Mexico, he stood calmly and faithfully at his post of duty. He would not forsake his people in their dire extremity, though he was solicited to take his family to a place of safety until the fever had subsided, he refused to do so. His wife was first attacked by the fever, and before she recovered he was also attacked and died on November 11, 1903. His wife and seven children survive him. * "Medical Missions: The Twofold Task" By Walter R. Lambuth, M. D., F. R. G. S. c. 1920 by Student Volunteer Movement for Foreign Missions Pg. 45-46 What a noble catalogue might be written of those men and women who as medical missionaries have followed their great Exemplar on His double errand to humanity! Let us take for illustration Dr. U. H. NIXON, who surrendered a lucrative practice in Texas, sold his house, disposed of his effects and, taking his family, went at the call of the Church to Monterey, Mexico. Splendid fellow he was - a great Christian and a great physician. Hundreds were treated in his hospital wards, and thousands listened to his words in the chapel. Then came Yellow Jack up from Tampico. A weekly letter to the Secretary of the Mission Board told of the ravages of the epidemic. NIXON'S wife and children were smitten. His nurses succumbed. Yellow fever had seized its victims in almost every house. Then followed the telegram that he himself was ill. Finally the last message-an envelope containing a prescription blank on which was penciled the farewell. True as steel, prompt and unflinching as the fellows who have served the military hospitals in the Balkans and died of typhus, he answered the call of duty. Upon my way home one evening, in Nashville, Tennessee, I passed the gate of a hospital. The house surgeon was standing there for the moment and I caught his eye. Seeing that something unusual had happened, I stopped to hear the story. A brakeman had been crushed under the wheels of a freight train. The railroad surgeon was summoned, examined the patient, turned from the bedside and said there was no hope. "But he is not a Christian. Are you not going to tell him that he must die?" asked C. B. Hanson, the young doctor. "Tell him yourself, I cannot," was his reply, as he turned on his heel and left the hospital. The house surgeon returned to his patient, took him by the hand, looked him in the eye, and told him that he had less than three hours to live. He must make his preparation to die. The young brakeman was at first incredulous, but grasping the truth, requested Hanson to kneel by his side and pray, while he confessed his sins and committed his soul to God. Athwart the darkening shadows that settled rapidly across the cot that afternoon, there fell a great light, and a joy came into the hearts of two men, and of the angels. The story, told so simply and so earnestly, gripped me. I felt that a man with a soul like that ought to be a medical missionary and told him so. He went to Mexico. He took the place of NIXON who had fallen, carried the work with marked ability, comforted many hearts, led scores to Christ, was himself stricken with pellagra, and laid down his life-a faithful soldier. Additional Comments: Udolphus was the son of James Hamilton Nixon and Susan Emily Davies. He was born November 21, 1864 near Campbellton, Campbell Co., Georgia (Campbell Co. was dissolved and the area merged into Fulton Co., Georgia in 1932). Udolphus married Martha Elizabeth Nelson on September 1, 1887 in Coryell Co., Texas. They were the parents of nine children: Lillian Isabelle (1888 - 1892) Frederick William (1890 - aft 1942) Edward Hamilton (1892 - 1927) Virgil Miller (1893 - 1963) Rana/Rauine (1895 - 1901) Walter Z. (1898 - 1987) Martha Irene (1899 - 1990) Eugene Hendrix, Sr. (1901 - 1976) Mary Elizabeth (1903 - 1979) File at: http://files.usgwarchives.net/tx/coryell/bios/nixonmd55gbs.txt This file has been created by a form at http://www.genrecords.org/txfiles/ File size: 6.3 Kb