Wagner, Frederick J., M. D.

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

Frederick J. Wagner, M. D. A resident of McFarland, Kansas, for about eight years, Doctor Wagner had found many responsibilities and pleasant relationships with that community, where he is a well known and capable physician, a druggist and present incumbent of the office of postmaster.

Doctor Wagner is a native of Chicago, where he was born January 15, 1883. His father, Charles Wagner, was born in Waldek, Germany, in 1855, and at the age of seventeen accompanied his three brothers to America. Locating in Chicago, he became a well known business man, building a wholesale and retail grocery establishment and acquiring a substantial financial position. He died at Chicago in July, 1912. In politics he was rather independent, beginning as a democrat and later following the fortunes of the republican party. He was an active member of the Evangelical Church. Charles Wagner married Sophia Seggebruch, who was born in Will County, Illinois, in 1859, and is still living in Chicago. Doctor Wagner was the second of five children. Louise, the oldest, is the wife of Rev. H. J. Schick, pastor of St. Luke's Evangelical Church at Evansville, Indiana. Charles, the next younger brother to Doctor Wagner, lives at home with his mother and looks after the family estate in Chicago. Clara is the wife of Dr. Cleaver Brinkerhoff, a physician and surgeon in Chicago. Sophia married Arthur Good, foreman of the installation department of the Commonwealth Edison Electric Company at Chicago.

The Chicago public schools supplied Doctor Wagner with his first instruction and he also attended Northwestern University at Evanston. In 1906 he graduated from the medical department of the University of Illinois at Chicago, and after that had twelve months of service as an interne in the West Side Hospital of that city. He had several times returned to Chicago for advanced courses in the Post-Graduate Hospital and Mercy Hospital. Doctor Wagner did his first regular practice in Kansas, locating at Paxico in 1907. A year and a half later he bought the practice of Dr. C. R. Silverthorn at McFarland and from the beginning had enjoyed a splendid patronage in both medicine and surgery. In 1910 Doctor Wagner built and opened a drug store on Main Street, and is still its proprietor. He is local surgeon for the Rock Island Railway Company and was formerly a member of the County Medical Society and the American Medical Association. Along with his profession and business duties he had enjoyed many of the honors and responsibilities of public life. He is a member of the McFarland School Board, had served as health officer and as coroner of Wabaunsee County, had been a member of the McFarland Town Council, for two terms was mayor, and in 1911 was appointed postmaster under President Taft. He still continues the incumbent of the office under the civil service rules. Doctor Wagner is also a director of the First State Bank at McFarland. Besides his home on Main Street he owned another dwelling on the same street.

Doctor Wagner is independent in his political actions. He is a member of the Evangelical Church, in which he was reared, but at McFarland he attends the Methodist denomination. He is affiliated with Alma Lodge No. 161, Ancient Free and Accepted Masons, Topeka Consistory No. 1 of the Scottish Rite, Abdallah Temple of the Mystic Shrine at Leavenworth, the Knights and Ladies of Security and McFarland Camp No. 1182 of the Modern Woodmen of America.

In 1909, at Olsburg, Kansas, Doctor Wagner married Miss Mabel Fagerberg, daughter of Senator Oscar and Hannah (Miller) Fagerberg. Her parents live at Olsburg, where her father had been a merchant for the past forty years and is also an extensive ranch owner and had been prominent in state politics. Doctor and Mrs. Wagner have two children: Verne, born May 2, 1910, and Nyla, born October 4, 1913.

Source: A Standard History of Kansas and Kansans

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