Wetzel County, West Virginia Biography of George W. ANDERSON, M. D. ************************************************************************** USGENWEB NOTICE: Material may be freely used by non-commercial entities, as long as this message remains on all copied material, AND permission is obtained from the contributor of the file. These pages may NOT be reproduced in any format for profit or presentation by other organizations. Persons or organizations desiring to use this material for non-commercial purposes, MUST obtain the written consent of the contributor. Submitted by Valerie Crook, , March 1999 ************************************************************************** The History of West Virginia, Old and New Published 1923, The American Historical Society, Inc., Chicago and New York, Volume III, pg. 98 GEORGE W. ANDERSON, M. D. A native of Wetzel County, now doing an extensive practice as a physician and surgeon at Littleton, Doctor Anderson was in early life a teacher, and his career has shown him to be possessed of excep- tional abilities for professional service. He was born near Wileyville, Wetzel County, November 19, 1872, youngest of the fifteen children of William H. Anderson and the only one of this large family born in Wetzel County. All the others were natives of Belmont County, Ohio, where William H. Anderson was born, March 29, 1820. He was a farmer, a Union soldier in the Civil war, and also taught school a number of terms both in Bel- mont County and in Wetzel County, West Virginia. In 1870 he moved to Wetzel County, locating on a farm near Foster, in 1871 went to Postlethwait Ridge near Wiley- ville, and from there in 1883, removed to the vicinity of Smithfleld, where he died in January, 1895. He began his voting as a democrat but later became a republican and was an active member of the Methodist Episcopal Church. William H. Anderson married Lucinda Your, who was born in Belmont County, Ohio, September 21, 1826, and died at Middlebourne, Tyler County, West Virginia, November 29, 1916, at the age of ninety, having retained her faculties to a remarkable degree in advanced years. She was the mother of fifteen children. Among the children who sur- vived infancy were: Hannah, who died in Belmont County, aged seventy-two, wife of David Rutter, a school teacher and farmer who died near Saulsbury in Wood County, West Virginia; John R. was a merchant and died in Wetzel County in 1897; Isaac L. is a farmer in West Virginia; Samuel is an oil field worker in Texas; Mary, twin sister of Samuel, lives at Earnshaw, her first husband having been Harvey Mahoney and she is now the widow of Lindsa Anderson; Amy lives at Parkersburg, widow of Ebenezer C. Horner, who was a farmer; Margaret lives on her farm in Wetzel County, widow of John Postlethwait; Katherine is the wife of Friend Rutter. The names of other children who died in youth were Gasper, Elizabeth, William and Lucinda. George W. Anderson was reared in the atmosphere of a farm in Wetzel County, attended rural schools and spent two years in the Fairmont State Normal School, concluding his work there in 1896. Doctor Anderson was an apt stu- dent from early childhood, and at the age of fourteen was granted a license to teach and at that time taught a term of rural school in Wetzel County. Altogether he taught eleven terms in the country districts of the county, and was in the schoolroom until 1900. After that until 1904 he was in the oil fields of Wetzel County, and then began his serious preparation for the medical profession. The first two years he attended the Central University School of Med- icine at Louisville, Kentucky, another year was in the medi- cal department of the University of Louisville, and he finished in the Hospital Medical College, the medical school of Central University of Kentucky, graduating M. D., July 30, 1908. In the same year he began practice at Burchfield in Wetzel County, a year later moved to Union- town, where he practiced nine years, and since 1919 has had his home and offices at Littleton. He does all his sur- gical work and is a recognized specialist of ability in dis- eases of children. Doctor Anderson owns his modern home and offices on the public road in the eastern part of Little- ton and also has a farm seven miles west of Littleton, im- proved with good house and other buildings. Doctor Anderson is the present city health officer of Littleton, and is a member of the County, State and American Medical associations. He did much home work during the war, and he also passed the examination for duty in the Medical Corps but by order of the Government remained at Little- ton to help combat the influenza epidemic, which taxed all his powers and energies for several months. Doctor Anderson is a republican and is affiliated with Folsom Lodge No. 261, Independent Order of Odd Fellows, is also an Encampment degree Odd Fellow, and is a mem- ber of Littleton Lodge No. Ill, Knights of Pythias. Au- gust 19, 1900, in Wetzel County, he married Miss Jessie C. Toothman, daughter of Jesse S. and Susan (Snider) Tooth- man, the latter deceased. Her father is a retired farmer at Hundred. Doctor and Mrs. Anderson had three chil- dren: Howard, who died at the age of three months and one day; Gail, born July 13, 1902, graduated from the West Liberty State Normal School in 1920 and is now doing post-graduate work there; and Clair Sherrill, born March 4, 1911.