Preston, Richard O., M. D.

The following data is extracted from A Standard History of Kansas and Kansans.

Richard O. Preston, M. D. Since he completed his medical course Doctor Preston had been in active practice in Meriden in Jefferson County, and his reputation as a capable physician and surgeon is now widely extended. He is the son of a physician, and the name had been identified with medicine and surgery in this part of the state for over forty years.

The Prestons are a family originally from England, and they were pioneers in the state of Missouri. Dr. Richard O. Preston was born at Arrington in Atchison County, Kansas, March 12, 1885. His father, Dr. J. F. Preston, who is still in active practice at Effingham, Kansas, was born in Missouri in 1849 and lived there until he was seventeen years of age, when he came to Kansas in 1866, locating in Leavenworth County, where he came to manhood and married, He gradnated from the University of Louisville, Kentucky, with the degree M. D., and had been in practice over forty years. He was located at Arrington twenty years, and for the past twenty-three years his home and center of professional labors had been at Effingham. The senior Doctor Preston is a republican of the old school, is an active member of the Christian Church, and belongs to the Masonic fraternity and the Independent Order of Odd Fellows. He married Elizabeth Sutton, who was born in Leavenworth County, Kansas, in 1854, member of an old territorial family of Kansas. Their children are six in number. Eva married James Ellis, and they live at Effingham, where he is head clerk in the People's Store. Luella is married and lives at Tulsa, Oklahoma, where her husband is engaged as a contractor and builder. Lucian died at the age of twenty-nine in Effingham, when at the beginning of a very promising career, being manager of a chain of stores for C. W. Harlow, of Topeka, at the time of his death. The fourth in age is Dr. Richard O. T. B. Preston is a farmer at Effingham, and Scott, the youngest, is on a ranch in Coffey County, Kansas.

Doctor Preston was educated in the public schools of Effingham, graduating from high school in 1906, and then entered the medical department of Washburn College at Topeka, where he was graduated M. D. in 1910. In 1911 he received his diploma in medicine from the Kansas State University, and in 1913 he took post-graduate work in the Chicago Post-Graduate School. Doctor Preston began his professional work in Jefferson County and had since made his home at Meriden. His offices are on Main Street. Doctor Preston is now serving as coroner of Jefferson County.

He is a member of the Jefferson County and State Medical societies and the American Medical Association, is a republican, belongs to the United Brethren Church, and is affiliated with Meriden Camp No. 1491, Modern Woodmen of America, Meriden Lodge of the Ancient Order of United Workmen, Meriden Lodge of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, and the Mystic Workers.

On September 29, 1909, at Topeka, Doctor Preston married Miss Edna Lea Harlow, daughter of C. W. and Edna (Davis) Harlow. Her parents reside at Topeka. Mr. Harlow owned a store at Henryetta and in one or two other places in Oklahoma and had made a business of buying and selling stocks of bankrupt mercantile establishments. Doctor and Mrs. Preston have three children: Harlow, born June 6, 1910; Gwendolyn, born in 1913; and Edna Geraldine, the youngeat.

Source: A Standard History of Kansas and Kansans

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