COOPER: Dr. Francis W. Cooper, of Reedy, its first resident physician, 1887.
Dr. Francis W. Cooper came to "Three Forks" about the year 1867, from upper Meigs County, Ohio, near Athens.
He was a graduate of one of the National Schools of Medicine; tall, straight, blond with a flowing, almost red beard, which parted and streamed back past the sides of his elegant body as he rode against the wind. He was a familiar figure on all Reedy's roads for nearly twenty years. He served rich and poor with the same promptness, skill and care. An eight-mile ride on a winter night by him was expected, and I never head of an expression of dissatisfaction from him or from those he served. He was the family physician at our home -- home of the parents of the author of this book.
He was addicted to over indulgence in drinking of intoxicating liquors when at public gatherings of a business or political purpose; he had many enemies made by his biting retorts --often in epigram-- to those keepers of morals (of others than themselves) with which all communities ever were harrassed and ever will be. He had an impolitic impatience with ignorance in that strange intellectual who succeeds financially, and seldom hesitated in showing such a one his ignorance and making of him an enemy of the kind who mopes away and nurses revenge. He was thrice married. First to a Miss Spicer, who died, next with Miss Melissa J. Stewart, at Reedy, July 14, 1869, she a daughter of Joseph Stewart, son of the pioneer William Stewart. One child was born of this first marriage, her name Oheplia; she grew up here, went to her father's people in Ohio and was lost to recollection. The wife Melissa having died, Francis W. soon united in marriage with Miss Pruda Boice, daughter of a family of the name, residents of Seaman Fork of Reedy.
They made their home at a crossroads at the head of upper Left Reedy, which the doctor facetiously named "Windyville." He practiced from this home for some fifteen years.
Of this third marriage some children were born; two are remembered here as young men about the year 1894. Their names, "Fritz" and "Don."
Source: History of Roane County, West Virginia, 1774-1927 William H. Bishop, Esq. p 482-483
Submitter: Sandy Spradling, November 28, 1999
