My Genealogy Hound

DR. R. B. McCALL, whose name heads this brief biographical notice, was born in Scott Township, Brown County, Ohio, October 8, 1841. A. G. McCall and Louisa B. Stratton were united in marriage in the year 1840, and settled on a farm inherited of Robert McCall, the grandfather of the subject of this sketch. The farm is now a part of the extensive land interest of Samuel McCall, and is situated on the west bank of White Oak, half a mile north of White Oak Valley. When three years of age, his parents sold their farm and went to Higginsport, Ohio, from which place, eight years afterward, that is to say in 1852, they removed to Cincinnati, Ohio. His mother being a confirmed invalid, after their removal to Cincinnati, would spend the hot summer months in the country, and while at her father’s, Lot Stratton’s, died in the spring of 1860, and was interred in the Young’s Burying-Ground, south of New Hope. She was a Christian lady, and one who in her daily life practiced the holy precepts of that beautiful faith that inspired her heart. His father is living, and enjoys the well-merited distinction preferred by his many friends, who esteem him one of the leading mechanics and machinists of the West. The doctor has but one sister living, Mrs. Mollie McCall Meredith, who was married, in 1865, to John R. Meredith, of Pittsburgh, Penn., and is the mother of two children, a son and a daughter — Albert, sixteen years old, and a pupil at the Polytechnic School of Pittsburgh, and Addie, aged ten years. He has besides two brothers and a sister who sleep in the beautiful cemetery at Higginsport. Dr. McCall’s education was commenced at the age of six years; he attended his first school in an old domed brick church that stood on the hill behind Higginsport. Subsequently, for a few years, he went to school in the first two-story brick schoolhouse which occupied a site a little back of the handsome new edifice recently erected. His father, who was one of the builders, fell from the cupola while it was in process of construction, and only saved his life by clutching the eves as he was plunging off the roof. He recalls the names of Prof. E. C. Ellis, Prof. Smith, Mr. Spafford, S. White and Isaac Kelso (author of “Danger in the Dark”) as kind and capable instructors, under whose supervision he had, at different times, the good fortune to be placed. Should this meet the eye of Prof. Ellis, he will smile at the recollection of a certain barricading business in the old domed brick, and the liberal treat he bestowed afterward. Leaving the Higginsport schools, Dr. McCall entered those of Cincinnati, taking the grades in regular order. These schools were divided into three classes, district, intermediate and high, the latter being represented by Woodward High School and Hugh’s High School. After acquiring, in eight years, such an education as those schools afforded, he engaged in school teaching, which occupation was followed for several years. In 1859, he accompanied his mother in one of her annual excursions to the country for her health, and after her decease, employed himself in teaching in the common schools of Brown County, varying the monotony of the calling by occasionally taking a select or grammar school for the instruction of teachers. He commenced the study of medicine in 1860, while teaching, receiving books and instructions of Dr. E. B. Fee, of New Hope. In 1862-63, he attended his first course of medical lectures in amphitheater of the Medical College of Ohio, at Cincinnati, and the successive courses of 1863-64 and 1864-65, and was graduated with the honors of his class at the conclusion of the last course, March, 1866. Dr. James T. Whitaker, Professor of Theory and Practice in Medical College of Ohio, Dr. William W. Seely, Professor of Diseases of the Eye and Ear, and Dr. Samuel Nickells, Professor of Materia Medica and Therapeutics in the Medical College of Ohio were classmates of his. At the instance of Profs. Roberts, Bartholow and Dr. David Judkins, he was appointed to a position in the Fourth Street Cholera Hospital in the late epidemic. In April, after graduation, he was offered a partnership with Dr. Helm, one of the popular physicians of Louisville at the time, and a little later was indebted to Dr. John Tate, of Third and Broadway, for his kindly offices in an attempt to establish a practice in Cincinnati, which failed of its accomplishment because of the poverty of the hero. He had a realizing appreciation of country air, green fields and majestic woodlands, and consequently sought a location where he could enjoy these while he practiced his chosen profession. In the fall of 1867, he perfected a partnership with Dr. Ross Russ, of Danville, Highland Co., Ohio, where he had his first experience in private practice. Although building up a lucrative practice, he soon became displeased with his surroundings, and the following year left Danville to open an office in Arnheim, Brown Co., Ohio, from which place, after discovering the unsuitableness of the situation, he finally removed to New Hope, and entered a partnership with Dr. E. B. Fee, which lasted to the spring of 1869. In the fall of 1869, after dissolving the partnership with Dr. Fee, he returned to Cincinnati, and resumed teaching in the intermediate schools of that city, having previously passed through a five days’ examination by the City Board of School Examiners. He held the position in the intermediate department two years, and was then transferred, and at the end of the third year resigned. In 1872, the directors and stockholders sought to rehabilitate Farmers’ College at College Hill, and advertised in the Cincinnati dailies for a Principal. Dr. McCall, with references from the best educators in the State, and from leading professional men of the city, presented an application for the situation, but by mistaking the date, fixing the time of meeting, it was received too late to be considered. In 1873, Dr. McCall having married, came back to New Hope, and resumed the practice of medicine. On September 1, 1871, he was married to Sarepta S. Ralstin, the eldest daughter of Hon. O. P. Ralstin, of Clark Township, Brown County. The result of this union has been three children, two sons and one daughter — Henry, aged nine years, Mollie Meredith, aged seven, and Albert, aged five.