My Genealogy Hound

L. F. MURRAY, M. D., one of the worthy and esteemed citizens of Holden, Johnson County, has been engaged in practice here since May, 1876. During nearly two decades that have since elapsed, his popularity as a family practitioner and surgeon has constantly increased. In order to keep in touch with new discoveries in medical science, he studies the leading journals of his profession, and is a member of the Hodgen Medical Society, the State Medical Society and the National Association of Railway Surgeons. For a number of years he has been local surgeon for the Missouri Pacific Railway. His library is an extensive and valuable one, and the papers which he has been called upon to give on frequent occasions before the societies to which he belongs have invariably received favorable comment.

The parents of the Doctor, J. D. and Mary A. (Reese) Murray, were natives of North Carolina and South Carolina, respectively, and were married May 10, 1832. In 1839 the family, consisting of the parents, two sons and a daughter, drove across the country in a wagon, which also contained their few household effects. They were quite poor, and after arriving here met with a stroke of bad luck, as the horses died, and Mr. Murray was obliged to borrow one of a neighbor in order to plant his first crop. In time he became well-to-do, his possessions numbering some six hundred or seven hundred acres of land. A Democrat in politics, he voted for President Polk, but was opposed to secession, though his sympathies were to some extent with the South. His family was divided on the question, two of his sons enlisting in the Federal army and another son in the Confederate service. He was called to his final rest July 19, 1872.

Dr. Murray was born in Morgan County, Mo., May 2, 1847, and had but meager privileges in an educational way. While yet a mere boy he had a strong ambition to enter the medical practice, but, the war coming on, he abandoned the idea for a time. Remaining on the home farm until arriving at his majority, in 1869, he went to Nebraska and for a year and a-half engaged in farming there. This change was made in the hope of benefiting his health, and after roughing it he returned home much improved. During the summer of 1874 and 1875 he read medicine, and in the fall of the latter year taught school for a four-months term. In 1874 he took a course at the St. Louis Medical College, and in the summer of the following year practiced in Morgan County. In the fall of 1875 he entered the Louisville (Ky.) Medical College, and February 26 following was graduated with the degree of Doctor of Medicine.

In Morgan County, Dr. Murray and Elizabeth A. Ball, one of his boyhood playmates, were married on Christmas Day, 1877. To them have been born two sons: Samuel Astley, May 21, 1882; and Francis Agnew, January 6, 1889.

For two terms Dr. Murray has served as County Coroner, having been elected on the Democratic ticket. He is a worker in the ranks of that party and takes great interest in its prosperity. Personally he is well liked by all who know him, and enjoys the friendship of hosts of acquaintances in this locality.