Tyler County, West Virginia Biography of Joseph Leslie PYLE, M. D. This file was submitted by Valerie Crook, The submitter does not have a connection to the subject of this sketch. This file may be freely copied by individuals and non-profit organizations for their private use. All other rights reserved. 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 WVGenWeb Archives. If you arrived here inside a frame or from a link from somewhere else, our front door is at http://www.usgwarchives.net/wv/wvfiles.htm The History of West Virginia, Old and New Published 1923, The American Historical Society, Inc., Chicago and New York, Volume III, pg. 219-220 JOSEPH LESLIE PYLE, M. D. The problems of health are really the problems of life and must pertain to all ques- tions of human interest, so that the physician and surgeon is really the most important and useful man in his com- munity. He must possess a wide range of general culture be an observant clinician and well-read neurologist, even although he never specializes along any given line. To take his place among the distinguished men of his profession he must bear the stamp of an original mind and be will- ing to be hard-worked while at the game time his soul often- times faints within him when he is studying the mysteries of his calling. Acquainted with the simple annals of the poor. and the inner lives of his patients, he acquires a moral power, courage and conscience which enable him to inter- fere with the mechanism of physical life, alleviating its woes and increasing its resistance to the encroachments of dis- ease. Such a skilled, learned and sympathetic medical man is Dr. Joseph Leslie Pyle, one of the distinguished members of the Hancock County medical profession, a practitioner at Chester since 1907, and president of the West Virginia State Board of Health. Doctor Pyle was born December 2, 1866, in Tyler County, West Virginia, and is a son of Benjamin Leslie Pyle. Ben- jamin L. Pyle was born in Cecil County, Maryland and as a young man came to Tyler County, West Virginia, where he passed the remainder of his life in agricultural pursuits He married Miss Mary Duty, a native of this county, and they were highly esteemed and respected. One of their sons, Christian Engle Pyle. went to the West in 1886 and became an attorney in Missouri. Later, however, he re- turned to Middlebourne, Tyler County, where he practiced for some years, finally going to Huntington. He became a leading member of the bar, and died at Chester in May, 1921, while on a visit to his brother, Doctor Pyle. An- other brother, Stephen G. Pyle, at the age of twenty-one years, at Middlebourne, was county superintendent of schools of Tyler County. He also served two terms in the State Legislature, managed a lumber yard at Sistersville, where he became cashier of the First National Bank, and was then president of the First National Bank of Middle- bourne. He still retains this position, and is also cashier of the Tyler County Bank at Sistersville, although a resi- dent of Middlebourne. He is also manager of the line be- tween these two points of the Tyler Traction Company, a distance of about ten miles. A strong republican, he is a power in state politics. Joseph Leslie Pyle spent his boyhood on his father's farm and as a youth received only a common school education. He taught school for three years in Tyler County and then began reading medicine, receiving his degree of Doctor of Medicine at Keokuk, Iowa, in 1896. He began the practice of his calling at Bearsville, Tyler County, his old home town, where he remained until 1905, and then spent one year in post-graduate work at Chicago. On his return he spent a short time at Follansbee, and in 1907 came to Chester, which has since been his home and the scene of his prac- tice and success. Elected mayor tor a two-year term, he resigned from that office in order that he might give his undivided attention to the duties of his profession. On June 1, 1913, he was appointed a member of the State Board of Health by Governor Hatfield for a four-year term, and was reappointed by the same republican governor in 1917. In 1921 he was given his third appointment to the position, this time by a democrat, Governor Cornwall. In July, 1921, he was elected president of the board, which position he still holds, his associates being: V. T. Church- man, M.D.. of Charleston; W. S. Babb, M.D., of Keyser; B. F. Shuttleworth, M.D., Clarksburg; T L. Harris, M.D., Parkersburg; H. G. Camper, M. D., Welch; and W. T. Hen- shaw, M.D., Commissioner of Health, Charleston. Doctor Pyle gives close attention to the business of the board, which examines all applicants for diplomas, supervises all matters of public health and sanitation and holds three annual meetings yearly to discuss matters pertaining to the welfare of the people of the state. The Doctor is a strong republican in politics, but polities has had nothing to do with his preferment, which rests on merit alone. He holds three post-graduate diplomas and is an active member of the Hancock County Medical Society, the West Virginia Medical Society, the Ohio Medical Society, the Columbiana County Medical Society, the Pennsylvania Railway Sur- geons Association and the American Medical Association. He is local surgeon for the Pennsylvania Railway System. As a fraternalist he belongs to the Masons, being a thirty- second degree Knight Templar and Scottish Rite Mason. and a member of the Mystic Shrine, to the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks of East Liverpool, the Knights of Pythias, and the D. O. O. K., in all of which he is very popular. Doctor Pyle married Miss Lillian Monce, of Frankford, Kansas, but who, at the time of their marriage, lived in Chicago, Illinois. They have no children.