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GEORGE A. MORRISON, M. D.
Vol. 3, p. 1011
Book has photo

The medical fraternity of Eastern Oklahoma has no more skilled,
learned or distinguished member than Dr. George A. MORRISON, of
Poteau, who has been engaged in practice in Le Flore County since
1899. He is a native of the Buckeye state, born in Guernsey County,
May 12, 1853, and in the November following his birth his parents,
Kellita P. and Rebecca (LAW) Morrison, removed to Van Buren County,
Iowa, where, at Birmingham, the father operated a furniture factory
for about three years. The family then removed to a farm in Appanoose
County, Iowa, where they were living when the Civil war came on, and
Kellita P. Morrison offered his services to the Union, enlisting in
Company C, Thirty-sixth Regiment, Iowa Volunteer Infantry. With that
regiment he served gallantly until the close of the war, and through
bravery on the field of battle and faithful and cheerful discharge of
his duties, won consecutive promotion to captain, a rank which he
held at the time of securing his honorable discharge, on account of
physical disability, in the latter part of the summer of 1865.

At the close of his military service, Kellita P. Morrison returned
to his family, who were awaiting him at Unionville, Iowa, and when he
had recovered his health he engaged in general merchandising at that
place. His gallant services as a soldier had brought him into public
favor, and not long after his return from the war he was elected
county clerk of Appanoose County, and removed his family to the
county seat, at Centerville, which was the home of his colonel,
personal friend and immediate neighbor, who afterward became Governor
DRAKE of Iowa. Captain Morrison served two terms in the capacity of
county clerk, and when he left that office moved back to Unionville
and again settled on his farm, where he resided until 1887. In that
year he disposed of his agricultural interests and moved to Seymour,
Wayne County, Iowa, where he again engaged in merchandising, and
continued to be so occupied until his death, which occurred in 1891,
when he was sixty-four years of age. Mrs. Morrison lived to the
advanced age of eighty-four years and died at the home of her son,
Doctor Morrison, at Poteau, in 1914. These worthy people were the
parents of two sons and two daughters who survive them.

Doctor Morrison was reared in Iowa, and after graduating from the
Centerville High School predilection led him to the study of
medicine, a profession for which he is well adapted by nature by
reason of a kind and gentle temperament, as well as his devotion to
the calling. On March 5, 1885, he was graduated from the medical
department of Drake University, at Des Moines, Iowa, and immediately
thereafter began his active professional career at Seymour, Iowa,
where he remained until 1887, then removing to Columbus, Kansas,
which was his field of practice until 1899. In that year he came to
Le Flore County, Oklahoma. While at Columbus, Doctor Morrison served
as secretary of the Board of United States Pension Examiners, as
local surgeon for the Frisco Railroad and as secretary of the
Southeastern Kansas Medical Society, and in 1896 was appointed by
Governor MORRILL as surgeon of the Kansas State Penitentiary, a
position which he held for three years, retiring then because of a
change in the political administration. For three years also he was
professor of physiology in the College of Physicians and Surgeons of
Kansas City, of which institution his son, Dr. Robert L. Morrison,
who was associated with him in practice at Poteau for several years,
was a graduate.

Doctor Morrison was married in 1876, at Unionville, Iowa, to Miss
Henrietta FARLEY, and to this union there have been born six
children: Dr. Robert L., before mentioned; Chester F.; Arthur B.;
Ruth; Jo and Helen. Dr. Robert L. Morrison took post-graduate work at
the Chicago Polyclinic and became a well known physician and surgeon.
His death occurred November 17, 1915. Doctor Morrison of this review
has not only won general recognition as a medical practitioner, but
also as a surgeon, being at the present time local surgeon for both
the Frisco and Kansas City Southern Railroads at Poteau. He is a
member of the Le Flore County Medical Society and the Oklahoma State
Medical Society, and in addition to having thus kept abreast of his
profession by being in touch with the medical fraternity, has taken
post-graduate courses in the medical department of Tulane University,
at New Orleans. In politics he is a stanch republican, in religious
faith a Methodist, and fraternally a Knight Templar Mason, a Pythian
Knight and an Odd Fellow. In his fraternal work he has been active,
being now master of the blue Lodge of Masonry, a past chancellor of
the Knights of Pythias and a past grand in Odd Fellowship. In public
affairs he takes a commendable interest. He is an active member of
the Poteau Chamber of Commerce, of which he has been president, and
is held in the highest esteem, not only as a leader of his
profession, but as an influential and stirring factor in all that
tends to advance the city's welfare.

Typed for OKGenWeb by: Dorothy Marie Tenaza, January 9, 1999.