Edgar V. Van Norman

As printed in 1881

EDGAR V. VAN NORMAN, homeopathic physician and surgeon, Springfield. "There are those characters that stand out from the ordinary plane of humanity as a “bas relief” from a frescoed wall, which can be distinctly: seen from positions whence the surrounding figures are hid in obscurity. Such a character is Dr. Edgar V. Van Norman-—an admirable illustration of sturdy self-reliance and indomitable will, against which difficulties are presented but to be overcome—obstacles but to be removed. Although but nine years a resident of Springfield, his influence has been widely felt, professionally and otherwise, having rescued the homoepathie practice from the languishing and moribund condition in which he found it, and placed it at least upon a plane with the allopathic school, on a flourishing and growing basis. Edgar V. Van Norman was born in Halton Co., Canada, in 1838; emigrated to Ohio in 1857, attending school at Berea six months; thence. he went back to Canada. Here he spent some time on the paternal farm, for the double purpose of clearing it of incumbrance and studying his profession; having accomplished the former, and becoming dissatisfied with the allopathic school, he decided to abandon it, and traveled a few years, accomplishing again a double purpose, as, while collecting for an agricultural implement house, he was studying homoeopathy; he then attended the homoeeopathie school in Cleveland, from which he graduated in 1869; during this course, he practiced medicine in Cleveland with his uncle, Dr. H. B. Van Norman, subsequently consummating a copartnership with Prof. T. P. Wilson. During his residence in Cleveland, he had charge of the Opthalmie and Aural Institute of that city. In 1871, he came to this city, finding hommeopathy at zero, and before him the difficult task of establishing the practice in the face of almost organized opposition. The present states of homeopathy here, and the Doctor's onerously large practice, speak his unqualified success. The Doctor was married, in 1867, in Indiana, to Miss Martha N. Hazlitt, of a family of culture and refinement, and has been blessed with two children, a boy and a girl, of singular beauty and attractiveness. The Doctor comes of a sturdy pioneer family, from whom he inherits his strong points of character and an iron constitution fully equal tothe gigantic tasks imposed upon it. He isa member in good standing of Springfield Lodge, No. 33, I. O. O. F.; a Master Mason; a 32-degree member of the Scottish Rite, and for a time Orator of the Anderson Lodge of Perfection, of Anderson, Ind.; he has done much effective work in the temperance movement, and was District Grand Marshal of Good Templars for the Dominion of Canada; is a prominent and zealous member of the Methodist Episcopal Church, and has always been actively engaged in Sunday-school work. Although just in the very prime of vigorous manhood, the gratifying results of the Doctor's well-directed efforts are manifest in his very comfortable circumstances, having surrounded his family with all that a spacious and elegant homestead implies. In politics, the Doctor is a “Stalwart physically, he is hale and muscular, with a commanding and at the same time a pleasing and welcoming presence—a man who makes friends without any apparent effort.

As printed in The History of Clark County Ohio, (1881). See the original pages. Wording is the original; obvious scanning errors have been corrected, and a few may remain.