Biography - Hall Whiteaker
HALL WHITEAKER, M. D. It is ordinarily conceded that when a man has made
an unqualified success of one profession he has done all that the demands of
ambition require, and may then be permitted to rest upon his laurels; but in
the case of Dr. Hall Whiteaker he has not been content to be known and
regarded only as one of the ablest exponents of the medical profession in
his locality, but has found new "worlds to conquer" in the field of
politics.
Dr. Hall Whiteaker was born at New Burnside, Illinois, October 17, 1869, and
is the son of Captain Mark Whiteaker, of Vienna, Illinois, one of the
leading citizens of Johnson county and its ex-sheriff. Captain Whiteaker was
born in Massac county, Illinois, in 1833, being the son of Hall Whiteaker,
Sr., who migrated to Illinois from Pennsylvania, and later moved from Massac
county to Johnson county, in which county he lived and died finally at his
home in New Burnside in the year 1842. Hall Whiteaker, Sr., married Elvira
Dameron, and of their six children five are still living.
Their eldest child was the son, Mark, and his early educational advantages
were of the sort peculiar to Johnson county in the early forties. When he
reached his majority and found the responsibility of man's estate upon him
he engaged in farming, in which he was occupied until the opening of the
Civil war, when he promptly enlisted in the Federal army and was
commissioned captain of Company G, One Hundred and Twentieth Infantry,
serving in General Grant's army in its preliminary advance upon Vicksburg.
He saw active service at Corinth, Guntown and Shiloh, subsequent to which
engagements he was discharged for disability. Following the close of the war
and the return of natural conditions once more, Captain Whiteaker was
elected sheriff of his county under a Republican administration, of which
party he was a staunch supporter, and served in that capacity for four
years.
Before the war Captain Whiteaker had married Miss Elizabeth Deaton, a
daughter of William Deaton, who came to Illinois from Alabama. The issue of
their union are: Arista, the wife of I. N. McElroy, state agriculturist for
the penitentiary at Chester, Illinois; Martha, who is Mrs. O. E. Burris, of
Simpson. Illinois; Geneva, wife of Dr. A. I. Brown of Vienna, Illinois; Dr.
Hall, the subject of this sketch; Dr. William J., of Pulaski, Illinois;
Elizabeth, who married J. P. Mathis, of Vienna, Illinois, a member of the
General Assembly; and Gertrude, the wife of A. L. Compton, a merchant of
Mound City.
Hall Whiteaker was a student in the common schools of his home town until
mid-youth, when he took a complete course in the Northern Illinois Normal
and Business College at Dixon, Illinois. He finished the teacher's course
there, following which he took his place in the school room and served three
years in the capacity of a teacher. It was not his wish or intention,
however, to spend his life teaching school, and at the time he gave over his
labors in that field he had already become possessed of some of the
elementary rudiments of the study of medicine through private reading under
careful supervision, and he became a student at the Foreman School of
Medicine, preceding which he took a course of lectures in the Indianapolis
School of Medicine. Following his studies at the Foreman School he went to
Arkansas, where he successfully passed the examinations of the state board
of health and went on to Garner, Arkansas, where he became actively engaged
in the practice of his profession. At the close of two years' practice there
he had completed his course of medical study with the Barnes Medical
College, now a part of the Washington University of St. Louis, graduating
from that school in 1893 and locating at Hodges Park, Illinois. After
sixteen months of practice there he removed to Olmstead, as offering a wider
field for his talents, and there he remained for seven years, enjoying an
enviable reputation in that place, and in 1901 he came to Mound City, where
he has since taken high rank in his chosen profession.
The enthusiasm of Dr. Whiteaker for his profession has led him to identify
himself with various medical societies, conspicuous among which are the
Southern Illinois Medical Association, The Illinois State Medical
Association, The American Medical Association, and also the Association of
Surgeons of the Illinois Central System, embracing the sub-systems of the
Indiana Southern and the Yazoo & Mississippi Valley Railways. Dr. Whiteaker
is local surgeon for the Illinois Central at Mound City. In the years 1907
and 1909 he fortified his already extensive course of study by taking post
graduate work in the New York Polyclinics, and has left nothing undone that
might be calculated to aid him in the successful demonstration of his chosen
work.
True to the principles of his early home influence Dr. Whiteaker on reaching
his majority manifested a more than casual interest in political matters,
his sympathies being with the Republican party, as were his father's. His
splendid mental equipment for public life, combined with his zeal for party
interests and his willingness to bear his share of the burdens of party
labors, resulted in his being led into convention work from time to time,
and he served ably in various senatorial, congressional and state
conventions as the delegate of the Republican party. His ward in Mound City
made him its councilman, which, with his previous service, manifested
eloquently his especial fitness for safe and conservative work in the
General Assembly. Accordingly he was nominated by primary September 15,
1910, receiving the largest vote ever accorded to a candidate for that
office in those parts, a very speaking circumstance with regard to his high
position in the hearts of his fellow men in the town and district where he
is best known. As a member of the General Assembly he quickly attained to
places of importance on that body. He was chairman of the committee on state
institutions; a member of the committees on drainage and waterways, federal
relations, fraternal and mutual insurance, miscellaneous subjects and
railroads, roads and bridges. During the session he took the opposition on
the proposed civil-service legislation, and made a strong effort to secure
some legislation touching upon the profession of medicine and its practice.
In his campaign he took active part in the labors of the party, and stumped
the district in the interests of his party and himself.
Fraternally Dr. Whiteaker is a thirty-second degree Mason, being a member of
the Mound City lodge, of the Cairo Chapter and Commandery, and of the
Oriental Consistory in Chicago. Both he and his wife are members of the
Congregational church.
On September 29, 1891, Dr. Whiteaker married Miss Cina West at Belknap,
Illinois, a daughter of Joshua West, of Massac county, a veteran of the
Union army.
Extracted 14 Jan 2018 by Norma Hass from 1912 A History of Southern Illinois, volume 2, pages 747-749.
