James F. Fitzsimmons

DR. JAMES F. FITZSIMMONS, who at the time of his death on April 12th, 1910, was the oldest practicing physician in Bucyrus, was also a citizen widely known and much esteemed. He was born on a farm in Whetstone township, this county, Sept. 18, 1843, 3-id was therefore in his 67th year at the time of his demise. His parents were William and Anna E. (Holman) Fitzsimmons, who came overland to Bucyrus from Huntingdon county. Pa., in 1831, settling in Whetstone township.

The subject of this sketch was reared on his parents' farm and there resided until his nineteenth year, when he went to Upper Sandusky, where he attended school for several terms. In May, 1864, he enlisted in the 134th O. V. I., and was discharged with his comrades in August of that year. In the fall of 1864 he attended the Vermillion Institute at Hayesville, O., remaining until the summer of 1865, when he entered the office of Drs. Ferris and Byron at Upper Sandusky. In the winter of 1865-66 he attended his first course of lectures at Charity Hospital Medical College at Cleveland, going thence to Ft. Wayne, Ind., where he studied and practiced with Dr. J. S. Gregg of that place until 1867. He then entered Chicago Medical College from which he was graduated in March, 1868.

Resuming practice in Ft. Wayne, he remained there until 1871 and then engaged in special practice in Cincinnati for a short time. In June, 1871, he located in Bucyrus, which place was his home and the scene of his professional activities until his death. Just previous to that final event he had been appointed a member of the county board of pension examiners. He was a member of Keller Post, G. A. R., had served as presiding officer of the Board of Health in past years; held membership and office in the Crawford County Medical Society and in the Royal Arcanum. He also held membership in Summit City Lodge No. 170 A. F. & A. M. of Ft. Wayne, Ind., and in Bucyrus Chapter, No. 160, R. A. M., and was Past Worthy Patron of Bucyrus Chapter No. 3, Order of the Eastern Star.

Dr. Fitzsimmons was married Jan. i, 1872, to Miss Ella Ryan, an adopted daughter of G. L. Saulsbury, a prominent business man of Bucyrus, well known throughout the county. Mr. Saulsbury was a native of the State of New York and married there Nancy R. Dedrick. He and his wife spent their lives subsequently in Michigan and Ohio, both dying in Toledo, this State, as also their children. Mrs. Fitzsimmons was born in Ireland and in 1861 came to Bucyrus, where she was educated and has since resided. Her father, Michael Ryan, married there Mary Cantwell, who was born in Clonmell, the called town in Tipperary county and the scene of many early battles.

She was of French extraction. Michael and Mary Ryan had ten children, all but four of whom died in Ireland. The survivors accompanied their parents to America, the family settling first in Hartford, Conn., and there the wife and mother died in middle age. Mr. Ryan married a second time and came to Ohio, locating in Marion county, where he and his second wife died, he at the age of about 70 years. They were members of the Roman Catholic church. Mrs. Fitzsimmons was the youngest of ten children and is the only one now living. Her children are three in number, namely: Ralph J., a well educated young man, died in 1909 unmarried. Nellie E. graduated from the School of Oratory at Northwestern University, Evanston, Ill., later was for eight years societor of the Bucyrus Forum and a city reporter for three years on the now resides in Spokane, Wash. Myra Lesevening Telegram. She is unmarried and lie is the wife of Walter M. Hubbell, assistant secretary of the American Clay Machinery Co., of Bucyrus, O., and has a daughter, Myra Leslie (2d). The family are all members of the Presbyterian church. Dr. Fitzsimmons' death was very sudden and was due to heart disease, which had not previously troubled him to any great extent. He was sweeping the veranda of his home when he suddenly fell back and in a few moments life was extinct. We cannot sum up his character better than to quote an extract from his obituary notice in a local journal. The writer says: "Dr. Fitzsimmons was a gentleman of the old school, a man or irreproachable character and strong moral uprightness. In character and personality he fulfilled in every particular the requirements of the noblest of professions and his heart was ever in his work. A man of courtly bearing and manner, he was one who justly earned the respect, confidence and veneration of old and young alike. No citizen of Bucyrus was more generally esteemed and more genuinely respected than Dr. Fitzsimmons. He was a man of modest tastes, with a distinct leaning for home life and for a period of years he has lived busily yet quietly here among the friends of his young manhood and of his later years. He has come to the end of the journey. The call, sudden though it was, found him fully prepared, as he had always been at all times, with a clean heart and mind, to meet his maker wherever the summons should call him. He leaves behind the record of a clean life worthily lived, than which a better monument to his memory could never be reared."

As printed in History of Crawford County, Ohio, and representative citizens (1912). See the original pages. Wording is the original; obvious scanning errors have been corrected, and a few may remain.