Two Alabama Doctors in Trouble

In one of my recent wanderings through the Internet Archive Scholar database, I happened to come across the two notices below about a pair of Alabama physicians. Let's investigate. 

The 1913 item describes the shooting death of Dr. Frank Walton on August 18 at the hands of Gid Weaver, an electrician working for the Woodward Iron Company. "Domestic trouble is said to be the cause" of the killing, which took place in Weaver's home in Mulga in front of his wife. I've written about a similar case in Birmingham in 1901 in which a doctor named John Payne was murdered by James Cook, presumably a jealous husband. 

Walton was a 38 year old Virginia native who worked as a mining company physician, possibly also for Woodward, a huge supplier of pig iron from 1881 until 1971. In 1899 he graduated from Vanderbilt Medical School in Nashville and was licensed by the Alabama state medical board. At the time of his death he was a member of the American Medical Association. 

As the two brief newspaper articles note, Weaver was arrested, made bond, and in October was indicted for second degree murder. I did not find the results of a presumed trial. Weaver lived until 1943 and is buried in Elmwood Cemetery. I was unable to find more information on Walton.

See below for something about the second physician, Dr. G.R. Norman.

,

Source: Southern Medical Journal 1913, vol. 6, no. 10, page 701

Birmingham Age-Herald 24 August 1913

Source: Library of Congress, Chronicling America

Source: Birmingham Age-Herald 10 October 1913

Library of Congress, Chronicling America

According to the Alabama Deaths and Burials Index, 1881-1974 via Ancestry.com, Weaver was a grocer living in Homewood at the time of his death. His wife's name was Iva. 

Source: Find-A-Grave 

@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@

This second note concerns Dr. G.R. Norman and his accomplice Kelly Adams, once a janitor at the State Capitol. The pair was accused in 1915 of stealing medical examination papers from the office of the State Health Officer, Dr. W.H. Sanders, in Montgomery and selling them to medical students to substitute during the annual examinations. 

A sting operation conducted by Dr. W. A. Avery, working for Sanders, paid Adams $25 to substitute correct exams for the originals. Adams originally wanted $100, but Avery talked the price down. Norman and Kelly had apparently worked a widespread fraud scheme at recent exam sessions.

As the first Age-Herald article below notes, nine "prominent" doctors from Birmingham and Montgomery were called by the prosecution to testify. These included William H. Sanders, prominent in medical education and public health in the state at this time. Two other physicians working in the state health department were also included. 

Norman and Adams were both found guilty. Norman was sentenced to six years imprisonment and Adams two. According to Alabama convict records, Norman's sentence took place June 8, 1915 & he was paroled April 23, 1918. He also received 30 and 60 day paroles in 1916 and 1917. I did not find Adams in those records. Sentences would have been to the Wetumpka State Penitentiary, which served the state until the original Kilby Prison opened in 1923

According to his Find-A-Grave listing, George R. Norman was born in Alabama on January 10, 1886. He attended Birmingham Medical College and graduated in 1911. His class photo can be seen here. Norman took the medical certification exam in Montgomery and passed. The Transactions of the Medical Association of the State of Alabama [p. 582], has him listed in 1913 as practicing in Arley, Winston County. That volume also notes he had moved that year to Jefferson County. 

I found George R. Norman in the U.S. Census for 1920 and Norman, his wife Helen and their two children in the 1930, and 1940 listings. In that first one Norman was living on Blackwells Island in Manhattan; the city hospital was located there and perhaps that was his place of work. The census notes that both his father and mother were born in Alabama. Norman was apparently living in a boarding house; the household had nine people of different last names. 

By 1930 his circumstances had changed. He was married to Helen, more than a decade younger, and they lived in a house they owned at 2529 Admiral Place in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Norman worked as a "material" doctor in private practice. Others in the household were children George R. Jr. and Charles A. Norman. A niece, Docia Stricklin, also lived with them. By the 1940 census Helen was listed as a registered nurse. 

The Normans remained in Tulsa, and he died on January 21, 1942, at the age of 56. He is buried in Rose Hill Memorial Park in Tulsa; his gravestone can be seen below. Helen died in 1963 and is also buried there, as is Charles who died in 2017 at age 83. I did not investigate George R. Jr. 

Other than the gravestone seen below, I have found nothing else on Kelly Adams. 

Source: Southern Medical Journal 1915, vol. 8, no. 4, page 337

Birmingham Age-Herald 4 March 1915

Library of Congress, Chronicling America

Columbia (Tenn.) Herald 12 March 1915

Source: Library of Congress, Chronicling America

Alabama Convict Records 1886-1952 via Ancestry.com

That symbol is a Masonic one. His wife Helen's marker shows the symbol of the Order of the Eastern Star, a Masonic group open to both men and women. 

Source: Find-A-Grave

This marker may be that of Kelly Adams and his wife. The stone is located in Oakwood Cemetery in Montgomery.

Source: Find-A-Grave

Charles A. McCallum, D.M.D., M.D., RIP

I would like to note the passing on January 16 of Charles A. "Scotty" McCallum, Jr., dentist, physician, UAB's third President from April 1987 until September 1993, two-term Mayor of Vestavia Hills and much more at UAB: professor, vice president for health affairs, dean of the School of Dentistry, and chair of the Department of Oral Surgery. But wait--there's more! See the plaque below. 

For more details on his remarkable life and career, see his entry at the Alabama Academy of Honor and the extensive obituary at AL.com The UAB Archives also has some material about him. 

I had two minor encounters with Dr. McCallum in the late 1980's that were helpful to me and indicated the scholar and gentleman he was. When I first started researching the life and career of Alice McNeal, MD, the first Chair of UAB's Department of Anesthesiology, Dr. McCallum took the time to meet with me and let me pick his brain about her years in the School of Medicine. He didn't know her that well, but gave me some details and names of others to contact. 

In 1988 I served as Vice-President of the Alabama Health Libraries Association and was responsible for organizing the annual meeting to be held in Birmingham. Dr. McCallum graciously agreed to be the luncheon guest speaker and regaled us with a talk on the remarkable history and growth of UAB. I remember vividly that he noted the university then occupied 84 [or close to that!] blocks in the city. I wonder what the number is now?

RIP, Dr. McCallum....

Source for this photo and one below: BhamWiki

The Doctor, His Son the Spy & The Police

Did you know Alabama has a direct connection to the rock group The Police? Let's investigate.

I jumped down this rabbit hole recently when I consulted the Wikipedia entry for that group's drummer, Stewart Copeland. Dianne and I had been re-watching a favorite TV show, Dead Like Me, and I realized he had written the music that opens each episode [and very catchy it is!]. Since The Police disbanded, he's composed for a number of films, TV shows, and video games. 

As noted in his entry, Copeland is the son of Miles A. Copeland, Jr., who was born on July 16, 1916 in Birmingham. Both his father and his Scottish mother Lorraine worked for intelligence agencies during World War II. After the war Miles Jr. and family settled in the Middle East; he worked on many covert operations for the CIA until his retirement in 1957. Lorraine became an archaeologist specializing in the region.

The family remained in the Middle East until moving to London in 1970. Miles Jr. sometimes returned to the agency on special assignments. Before his death in 1991 he kept busy writing articles for magazines and newspapers, books on foreign policy and an autobiography. Copeland was prominent enough to rate an obituary in the New York Times. He is buried in England.

The Wikipedia entry for Miles Jr. simply notes his birth in Birmingham as the "son of a doctor". So, what was his father's story? Since I've done a bit of medical history on this blog and elsewhere, that little tidbit caught my interest. So here we go...

Miles (Meter) Axe Copeland was born July 24, 1868, in Illinois. He died on March 9, 1958, and is buried in Elmwood Cemetery. I have yet to find out what he did in the first three decades of his life, but by the early 20th century he was in Alabama. He graduated from the Birmingham Medical College in 1903 and was certified by the Jefferson County Board of Medical Examiners in that same year. You can see the school's faculty and graduating students for 1902-1903 here. Copeland's instructors there included some of the state's most prominent physicians at the time, including William E.B. Davis, his brother John D.S. Davis, and Edgar P. Hogan. 

I have traced some of the family's residences and Copeland's medical offices through entries in the U.S. Census and the annual American Medical Directory [AMD]. In 1912 they were living at 721 South 20th Street [AMD]. The 1920 Census shows them at 2208 17th Avenue. The AMD shows them living at 2128 16th Avenue South in 1929 and 1931, as does the 1940 census. The Census listings note that Copeland owned his homes. 

His office was in the Farley Building in 1912, the Watts Building in 1929 and at 1927 1st Avenue North in 1931 [all AMD]. The BhamWiki entry on the Farley Building shows Copeland's office in room 406 in 1909, which is the date the building opened. He may have had his office there until the Watts Building opened in 1927. For some reason he moved yet again to the 1st Avenue North location by 1931. 

I have yet to find Copeland's date of marriage to his wife Leonora (1890-1966); she is also buried in Elmwood Cemetery. His parents were Miles Copeland (1829-1891) and Catherine Magdaline Axe Copeland (1835-1914). That explains where the "Axe" name enters the family line.

In the 1920 census they were living at the 2208 17th Avenue address. Son Miles was 3, their younger son Hunter was 1. A couple boarded with them. In 1940 Miles was 23 and Hunter was 21. Both were living again with their parents and are listed in the census as divorced. Miles' occupation was given as "sales manager", Hunter's as "office salesman". We know what happened to the younger Miles; I wonder about Hunter. The family had two young men as lodgers. 

One of Stewart's brothers, Miles Copeland III was born in London and graduated from Birmingham-Southern College in 1966. He has been active in the business end of music; his various ventures have included founding I.R.S. Records and various talent and booking agencies. He managed among others such bands as  Wishbone Ash and The Police, as well as Sting's solo music and acting careers. One of his agencies was Copeland International Arts or CIA. 

A third brother, Ian Copeland, was a music promoter and booking agent who helped launch the New Wave movement in the U.S. His memoir, Wild Thing: The Backstage, On the Road, In the Studio, Off the Charts Memoirs of Ian Copeland, was published in 1995. He died the following year. 

Some further comments are below. I wonder where Sting's father was born?


UPDATE 21 October 2020 

Stewart Copeland has done a podcast about his father the spy. Read about it here. 


UPDATE 11 November 2021

A recent article on AL.com interviews Miles Copeland III and his ties to Birmingham and The Police. 

Miles (Meter) Axe Copeland, MD [1868-1958]

Source: Ancestry.com 

Dr. Copeland with his wife Leonora G. Armstrong Copeland and their sons Miles Axe Copeland and Hunter Armstrong Copeland. Perhaps they are posing on the porch of one of their Birmingham homes. 

Source: Ancestry.com

Miles A. Copeland, Jr. [1916-1991]

Source: BhamWiki

Miles A. Copeland, Jr., as a young man

Source: Ancestry.com 

After graduating from the Birmingham Medical College, a private institution, Dr. Copeland joined the faculty of the school. This photograph dates from that period. BMC closed in 1915. 

Source: UAB Digital Collections 

Birmingham Medical College in 1912. Dr. Copeland both studied and taught here. This building stood on the same block as Hillman Hospital and Jefferson Tower, an historical area I have called "Birmingham's heaviest medical block." 

Source: BhamWiki

Farley Building on Third Avenue in a postcard around 1910

Source: Troy Libraries via Alabama Mosaic

Watts Building postcard

The building is located at 20th Street and Third Avenue North

Source: Troy Libraries via Alabama Mosaic

Dr. Mastin of Mobile Tours the World in 1901

Reading old newspapers often turns up fascinating material. I was recently wandering around in the Library of Congress digital collection Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers for another project unrelated to Alabama history and found the long article below. The piece appeared in the St. Paul Globe in Minnesota on July 21, 1901. Given the nature of the article, it probably appeared in other papers around the country. 

Wondering who these surgeons were, I skimmed the first paragraph and found "Dr. Mastin of Mobile, Ala." as one of the four. The travelers intended to visit and conduct clinics in Berlin, Moscow, Siberia, Korea and Japan. Some hunting and fishing would be included en route to Siberia. Interestingly, Mastin is mentioned in the article only that one time.

At first I thought this Dr. Mastin might be Claudius Henry Mastin, Sr. [1826-1898], with whom I am somewhat familiar. However, a check of my file on him quickly alerted me that although he had practiced in Mobile, he had also died three years earlier.

The Dr. Mastin mentioned in this article must be his son, Claudius Henry Mastin, Jr., who died in August 1925. Like his father he practiced in Mobile as well. Both men are buried in Maple Hill Cemetery in Huntsville. The elder Mastin received his medical degree from the University of Pennsylvania in 1849; his son from the same institution in 1884.

I wonder if young Dr. Mastin received his invitation to this trip based on his father's renown. After Confederate service in the Civil War, the older man spent decades participating in various medical organizations, publishing numerous articles and even invented several surgical instruments in addition to his clinical practice. I really need to do a blog post about him one day.

The First Certified, Practicing Female Physician in Alabama

With women currently comprising half of all medical students nationwide, it is strange to think of a time in Alabama with no female doctors. Yet, in the late 1800s the idea of women physicians was controversial in Alabama. In 1872 and 1880, several speakers expressed opposition to women physicians in speeches at the state medical association's annual meeting.

However, by 1890 things were changing. The number of female physicians had grown nationwide, and the stage was set for women to enter the profession in Alabama. At that time, Booker T. Washington needed a resident physician at Tuskegee Institute. Halle Tanner Dillon had just graduated with honors from the Woman's Medical College of Pennsylvania as the only African-American in her class. Washington wrote

Twenty-four year old Dillon had been born Halle Tanner, the daughter of Benjamin Tanner, a prominent African Methodist Episcopal Church minister. Her brother Henry O. Tanner would become a well-known artist. She had married Charles Dillon of Trenton, New Jersey in 1886, and had given birth to a daughter the following year. Her husband Charles died soon after the daughter's birth.

Booker T. Washington accepted Dillion for the resident physician position. She was to begin on September 1, 1891, but she had to pass the Alabama certification exam first. Washington knew the exam would be difficult for Dillon. She would have to spend several days answering hundreds of questions from the white male members of the board of examiners. So Washington arranged for her to study with his old friend Montgomery physician Cornelius Nathaniel Dorsette, one of the earliest certified black physicians in Alabama.

Born in North Carolina in the early 1850s, Dorsette had been a classmate of Washington's at Hampton Institute and graduated from the University of Buffalo Medical School in 1882. After Dorsett's graduation, Washington had persuaded him to come south and set up practice as the first licensed African-American physician in Montgomery and one of the first in the state.

After her period of study with Dorsette, Dillon sat for the medical licensure examination. The test began in Montgomery on August 17, 1891, and concluded on August 25. During those days she was examined on ten subjects by ten different examiners. Among those examiners were some of the most prominent physicians in Alabama.

Dr. Peter Bryce, superintendent of Alabama Hospital for the Insane since 1860, tested her on medical jurisprudence. Dr. Jerome Cochran, state health officer and the primary force behind the Medical Licensure Act of 1877, examined Dr. Dillon in chemistry. Her examiner in natural history and diagnosis of diseases was Dr. George A. Ketchum, Dean of the Medical College of Alabama from 1885 until his death in 1906; he was also involved in creating the Medical Association of the State of Alabama in 1847. Dr. James T. Searcy, her examiner in hygiene, became superintendent of the state's hospital for the insane the following year after Dr. Bryce's death. Dillon was examined in obstetrical operations by Dr. J.B. Gaston, who had served as president of the state medical association in 1882.

Dillon passed the examinations and went on to serve at Tuskegee from September 1, 1891 until sometime in 1894. During her tenure she was responsible for the medical care of 450 students, as well as for 30 officers and teachers along with their families. Johnson was expected to make her own medicines, while teaching one or two classes each term. She was paid six hundred dollars per year plus room and board and was allowed one one-month vacation per year.

In 1894 Dillon married Reverend John Quincy Johnson, a mathematics teacher at Tuskegee. The following year Reverend Johnson was named President of Allen University in Columbia, South Carolina. In 1900 he became pastor of an AME church in Nashville. The Johnsons had three sons. Dr. Halle Tanner Dillon Johnson died on April 26, 1901, of dysentery and childbirth complications; she was 37. Apparently she had ceased the practice of medicine after her second marriage.

The state medical society's transactions had noted that Dillon was the first African-American woman examined in Alabama. Does that phrasing imply that the board had previously examined a white woman? At some point between April 1891 and April 1892, Dr. Anna M. Longshore took the certification examination, but did not pass. One source claims that Dr. Longshore remained in Alabama to practice without a license, but that has not been confirmed. What is known is that Dr. Longshore came to Alabama to take that examination after a long career in medicine elsewhere.

Anna Longshore Potts, M.D.

Longshore was a member of the Female Medical College of Pennsylvania's first graduating class in 1851. After marrying Lambert Potts and establishing a lucrative practice in Pennsylvania, and then in Adrian, Michigan, she began to give talks on health topics to private groups of her patients. By 1876 Dr. Longshore-Potts had moved her talks to public venues. These efforts were so successful that she took her lectures on women's health topics on the road, appearing to great acclaim in San Francisco in 1881, followed by other west coast cities.

Thus when she came to Alabama in 1891 or 1892 to take the physician certification exam, Dr. Longshore-Potts had already established a successful career as a doctor, followed by another career as medical lecturer that had made her both famous and wealthy. We can only speculate as to why this successful woman, in her early 60s, took this arduous test under her maiden name. Perhaps Dr. Longshore-Potts saw herself as some sort of pioneer in this situation; yet what is known about her activities elsewhere does not give us a portrait of a radical reformer.

A few other women physicians appeared in Alabama before 1900, including Annie Louise Farrington, Justina Lorena Ford, and Ella Elizabeth Barnes. Several more were practicing by World War I. See the links below for more information.

Dr. Dillon was not the first female physician in Alabama, but the first to be certified by the state examination process under a law passed in 1877. In the 1850s Louisa Shepard graduated from her father's medical school in Dadeville, the Graefenberg Medical Institute. The school closed in 1861 after graduating some 50 students, including two of Louisa's brothers. She never practiced medicine; she married William Presley and they moved to Texas. Louisa died in 1901.


Early Black Physicians in Alabama

Early Female Physicians in Alabama


An earlier version of this post appeared in the Birmingham Medical News in 2012.

A Story in Stone: John Payne, M.D. [1860-1901]

Cemeteries are places crowded with fascinating stories, and the Pelham City Cemetery just off U.S. 31 at the corner of Industrial Park Road and Lee Street is no exception. There among many others with the same surname is the marker of John Payne, M.D.

Born in August 1860, Payne appears in the 1880 U.S. Census living in Shelby County with his father William H., a farmer, and mother Jane and his nine siblings. Somehow Payne managed to go to medical school, graduating from Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia in 1886. That school would have offered him one of the best medical educations available in the U.S. at the time. Members of the Shelby County medical board which tested him that same year for certification were apparently not impressed. The state medical association’s Transactions for 1887 noted, “This examination is not credible to the board. The papers are badly arranged, written on both sides, and some of the sheets evidently missing.”

Nevertheless, the board granted his certificate, since “The answers are usually correct.” After his examination, Payne moved to the Birmingham area and practiced there until his death. Sadly, he was shot by telegraph operator James P. Cook on May 30, 1901, and died the next day. A newspaper account of the murder declared that “The physician was a very popular young man.”

According to that press article, Cook shot Payne twice in the head from behind the doctor. Cook had recently separated from his wife, “said to be a very handsome woman,” and jealously was presumed to have fueled both the separation and the murder.

Payne apparently never practiced in Pelham, although during his lifetime several other physicians did. Based on the state medical society’s annual Transactions, at least four doctors were in Pelham at some point during those years: Eli F. Denson, Andrew W. Horton, and two Johnsons, Joseph M. and William R.K.

Payne is not the only physician buried in the City Cemetery who practiced elsewhere. William Betta Cross is known to have spent time in Helena and Columbiana before his death on Christmas Day 1884. That’s another story hidden in stone. An inventory of the cemetery done in 2002 is available.  

More photos can be seen at the Find-A-Grave site for Dr. Payne.

A version of this article appeared in the Pelham City News Fall 2013 issue.