Dana Amos Sargent

DANA AMOS SARGENT. M. D.

Professional success results from merit. Frequently in commercial life one may come into possession of a lucrative business through inheritance or gift, but in what are known as the learned professions advancement is gained only through painstaking and long-continued effort. Prestige in the healing art is the outcome of strong mentality, close application, thorough mastery of its great underlying principles and the ability to apply theory to practice in the treatment of diseases. Good intellectual training, thorough professional knowledge and the possession and utilization of the qualities and attributes essential to success, have made the subject of this review eminent in his chosen calling and he stands today among the scholarly and successful physicians in a community noted for the high order of its medical talent.

Dana Amos Sargent was born May 18. 1854, in Ontario, Lagrange county, Indiana, and he is a son of Amos David and Eliza T. (Worthing) Sargent. Amos D. Sargent, who during his active years was a successful and well-known physician, was born on February 3, 1814. At the age of thirteen years he suffered the loss of both of his parents and there was cast upon him the care of several smaller children. The lad was equal to the emergency, however, and not only cared for them, but managed to educate himself in the common branches and then worked his way through the Laporte Medical College. Eventually he married Eliza T. Worthing, and established himself in the practice of his profession at Ontario, Indiana. Later, in 1857, he moved to Butler, Illinois, where he remained until 1861, when he went to Ashtabula county, Ohio, from there to northern Illinois, and then, in 1865. to Boone county, Iowa. In 1867 he came to Hopkins township, Nodaway county, where he remained engaged in the active practice until his death, which occurred on August 13, 1895. His wife died on July 15, 1903. They were the parents of six children, of which number but two are now living, the subject of this sketch, and Francena, the wife of T. R. DeWolf. of Atchison township, this county. Dr. Amos D. Sargent was an ardent Democrat in politics and a member of the Masonic order.

Dana A. Sargent was reared by his parents, whom he accompanied on their various removals, receiving part of his education in the schools of Ashtabula county, Ohio, and Boone county, Iowa. He completed his common school studies after coming to Nodaway county and during the vacation periods he worked on a farm. He had long entertained the intention of taking up the practice of medicine for his life work and, with this end in view, he had studied the Science under his father's direction. At the age of twenty-three years he matriculated in the College of Physicians and Surgeons at Keokuk, Iowa, where he was graduated in 1878, with the degree of Doctor of Medicine. He returned to his home and engaged in the active practice in association with his father, with whom he remained until the latter’s death in 1895, since which time he has practiced alone, being now considered one of the leading physicians of Nodaway county and commanding a large and representative clientele. His ability to trace the devious paths of disease through the human system and to remove its effects is widely recognized, and a mind well disciplined by severe professional training and strengthened by the salutary counsels of his father, together with a natural aptitude for close investigation and critical research, have peculiarly fitted him for the calling in which he is engaged. He possesses the tact and happy faculty of inspiring confidence on the part of his patients and in the sick room his genial presence and conscious ability to cope successfully with disease are factors that have contributed much to the enviable standing which he has attained.

In November, 1881, Doctor Sargent married Carrie E. Wallace, the daughter of T. D. Wallace, and they became the parents of two children, Lawrence, now of Hopkins, and Ethel, the wife of Charles Brown, of Independence township, this county. Mrs. Sargent died on December 8, 1884, and in November, 1885, the Doctor married Mary Donlin, to which union three children have been born, Edna, John F. and Lois, the last two being in school.

Politically, Doctor Sargent is a stanch Democrat and takes a deep interest in public affairs, though his professional duties have to a large extent precluded his giving any serious attention to public affairs, aside from the casting of his ballot. Fraternally, he is a member of the Ancient Free and Accepted Masons. Genial in disposition and courteous in manner, the Doctor enjoys a large acquaintance throughout the northern part of Nodaway county and by all who know him he is held in the highest esteem because of his genuine worth.

As printed in Past and present of Nodaway County, Missouri (1910). See the original pages. Wording is the original; obvious scanning errors have been corrected, and a few may remain.