My Genealogy Hound

FRANK ERNEST SAMPSON, M. D.
Frank Ernest Sampson was born in Madison county, Iowa, June 3, 1866, in the paternal line, of English, and in the maternal of French ancestry. Reared in Madison and Adair counties, he was prepared in the public schools and the State University for the professional career that, from childhood, had been his constant aim. In 1891, he was graduated from Rush Medical College with the degree of Doctor of Medicine, and entered on the practice of his profession at Greenfield, Iowa.

On the 8th of June, 1892, Dr. Sampson was married to Miss Eldora Hill, of Monroe, Iowa, and their two children, Carl E. and Pearl M., twins, were born in 1895. In 1893 he located in Creston and for several years devoted much attention to special lines of ophthalmology and otology, but meanwhile established, as the first of its kind in Creston, a laboratory of pathology and bacteriology for modern methods of investigation of disease. Within a few months of the discovery of X-Ray, he added the necessary appliances for this work and was among the first of Iowa surgeons to make use of this practical aid in the work of his profession.

Realizing that, in order to secure the best results, there must be a place specially organized and equipped for treatment and care of the sick and injured, Dr. Sampson with others, sought to attract to Creston the interest of some of the sectarian orders devoted to hospital work. Not succeeding in this, movement was inaugurated that resulted in the organization of a nonpolitical, non-sectarian, non-exclusive, public institution, now known as the Cottage Hospital and Training School for Nurses. To the development of this institution, he has devoted unsparingly his time and means. As a member of its surgical staff, a member of the board of directors and secretary of the institution, the greater part of his time is now spent at the hospital.

While in later years the greater part of his own personal work has been in the field of general surgery, he has associated with him, well tried and thoroughly trained physicians, with whose help the special lines of attention to eye and ear work and the conducting of the laboratory of clinical and X-Ray investigation, are maintained.

In the way of professional affiliations, he holds active membership in the Union County Medical Society, the Southwestern Medical Association, the Iowa State Medical Society, American Medical Association, and is a life member of the International Surgeons Club.

He has been an active contributor to the current literature of medicine and surgery and an ardent advocate of all measures looking to elevation of the standards of his profession, and as a means to maintaining such in his own work has, from time to time, attended post-graduate schools and visited, for purposes of study and observation, the noted hospitals of different cities.

In the way of original work, he has contributed practical ways for increasing the efficiency of various operative procedures, and has invented numerous instruments and appliances with a view to simplifying life-saving operations. Though occupied with the exacting responsibilities of his profession, the Doctor has been a student of sociology and his efforts to establish and develop the hospital above mentioned, is in recognition of the ethical duty incumbent on every person living under the privileges and protection of social order. To this end, he has endeavored, while pursuing his work as a means of livelihood, to make it at the same time promote the general welfare of his
fellow citizens.

The voluntary assumption of a task, that involves the devotion of unceasing effort and the expenditure of thousands of dollars to the development of a hospital as a public utility, instead of a private possession and a source of personal profit, and the further undertaking, by example as well as by precept, to arouse an interest in such cause, with a view to creating an endowment fund whereby the perpetuation of such beneficence would be assured for generations to come, and carrying this work to the practical accomplishment, evident to anyone who visits Cottage Hospital, leaves little need for comment to demonstrate a clearly defined, faithfully and fearlessly pursued purpose in life.