OHIO GENEALOGY EXPRESS - Marion Co., Ohio

Source:
A History of Northwest Ohio
A Narrative Account of Its Historical Progress and Development
from the First European Exploration of the Maumee and
Sandusky Valleys and the Adjacent Shores of
Lake Erie, down to the Present Time
By Nevin O. Winter, Litt. D.
Assisted by a Board of Advisory and Contributing Editors
ILLUSTRATED
Vol. I & II
The Lewis Publishing Company
Chicago and New York
1917

AUGUSTE RHU, M. D., F. A. C. S. One of Ohio's oldest and most distinguished physicians and surgeons is Dr. Auguste Rhu, still in active practice with his son, H. S. Rhu, at Marion. Dr. Auguste Rhu was born in Seneca County, Ohio, Apr. 5, 1849. He attended the Franklin High School at Dayton and the Notre Dame University at South Bend, Indiana. He began the study of medicine at Marion under Dr. Robert L. Sweney, later studied under Dr. Jefferson Wilson at Beaver, Pennsylvania, and finished his medical training at the Western Reserve University at Cleveland, and graduated Feb. 25, 1885. he also received a diploma Sept. 25, 1887, from the Chicago Ophthalmic College and has done post-graduate work in both Chicago and New York. He is a member of the American College of Surgeons, 1913.
     Doctor Rhu began practice at Marion February 26, 1885. In 1883 he was elected professor of surgical pathology in the Ohio Medical University at Columbus. Besides a large practice, particularly in surgery, he has been surgeon for several railroad companies, for the Marion Steam Shovel Company, and at one time was president of the United States Pension Board. His attainments have become widely recognized and he is one of the leading members of the various medical societies and associations. In 1892-93 he was assistant secretary of the Ohio State Medical Society, and is a member of the Mississippi Valley Medical Society. He was president of the Marion County Medical Society in three different years and has long been active in the American Association of Railway Surgeons.
     Among the profession he is probably most widely known through his contributions to medical literature. His paper on Tubercular Laryngitis was read before the Marion County Medical Society in 1885. The Western Medical Reporter awarded him its $100 prize for the best surgical report published
December 5, 1888, by Doctor Rhu under the title "Strangulated Umbilical Hernia, Laparotomy Recovery." In the American Gynecological Journal of February, 1892, will be found his article on "The "inflammatory Troubles of the Right Iliac Fossa;" "Treatment of Surgical Shock," in Fort Wayne Journal of Medical Science April. 1887 Treatment of Acute Oedema of Larynx in the Philadelphia International Medical Magazine, in 1892; the after treatment of amputated wounds, in Transactions of the Ohio State Medical Society in 1893 ; Rupture of the Urinary Bladder, with fracture of the Symphysis Pubes. in International Surgical Journal of 1892 ; the Surgical Treatment of Rectal Abscess, read before the Crawford County Medical Society of Ohio in 1895. Doctor Rhu performed the first successful laparotomy in Marion County April 19, 1888, and up to the present writing (1917) has performed 2,500 abdominal operations with a death rate less than 1 per cent. He also performed 150 cranial operations and 5 laminectomies with recovery. In June, 1S89, he performed successfully a triple operation, for amputating both legs and arm. The same year he removed a cancerous uterus, made a pan-hysterectomy, the patient living today, October 12, 1917.
     Doctor Rhu is past exalted ruler of Lodge No. 32, Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks. He is president of the Marion Carnegie Public Library and a member of the United States Federal District Draft Board No. 3. On September 17, 1917, he was notified by the surgeon-general, F. C. Gorgas, that he was accepted as surgeon in the United States Medical Reserve Corps.
     Dr. Auguste Rhu married Miss Helen S. Sweney. She was born in Marion County in 1853 and died March 29, 1908. They were married July 7, 1875. She was a daughter of Marion's pioneer physician. Dr. Robert L. Sweney. Doctor Sweney was born in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, May 18, 1822, of Scotch-Irish ancestry. In 1828 the family removed to Crawford County, Ohio, and after leaving the public schools at Bucyrus he took up the study of medicine under Doctors Douglas and Swingley. He remained with them four years and in 1849 completed his course in the Cleveland Medical College. Returning to Bucyrus, he practiced until 1851 with his former preceptor, Doctor Swingley, and then located at Marion. Doctor Sweney was recognized as probably the most skillful and successful surgeon and gynecologist in Central Ohio. The publication known as Physicians and Surgeons of the United States gives him the distinction of being the first physician in the State of Ohio to successfully revert a chronic inversion of the uterus. Doctor Sweney was called the founder of the Marion County Medical Society organized June 5, 1877, and served as president of that body during its first two years. During the Civil war he was commissioned surgeon and assigned to the Forty-third Ohio Infantry and on June 8, 1865, Governor Brough commissioned him with the rank of major as military examining surgeon for Marion County. He stood high in medical circles and also as a citizen. Doctor Sweney died at Marion January 12, 1902. He married September 2, 1852, Miss Elizabeth C. Concklin, oldest daughter of Col. W. W. Concklin.
     Dr. H. S. Rhu, who thus inherits the traditions and accomplishments of two highly successful men in the surgical field, was born at Marion, Ohio, November 17, 1876. He was educated in the Marion public schools, Kenyon Military Academy, in the Western Reserve Academy and took his medical course in the Western Reserve University where he graduated June 15, 1899. Doctor Rhu has had a wide experience in handling tuberculosis. For two years he was an interne in the Lakeside Hospital at Cleveland and after his graduation returned to practice with his father. In 1905-07 he was a member of the staff of the Texas Sanitarium and resident physician of the Tuberculosis Hospital at Llano, Texas, and in 1907 was a resident physician in the Cragmor Sanitarium at Colorado Springs, later medical director of Dr. Boyd Cormic, St. Angelo, Texas. He is a member of the Society for Study and Prevention of Tuberculosis and belongs to the County and State Medical societies and the American Medical Association and served as president of the Marion County Medical Society. He is a Kniglit Templar Mason. He is a Presbyterian. Doctors Rhu, father and son, give most of their time to the surgical branch of their practice.
     In June, 1913, Dr. H. S. Rhu married Miss Lucy A. White of Buffalo, New York. Her father, J. Herbert White, has a wholesale and retail book and stationery business on Pearl Street in Buffalo. Doctor and Mrs. Rhu have two children: H. Sweetser Rhu, born August 6, 1914; and Roger William Rhu, born June 17, 1916.
Source: History of Northwestern Ohio - Vol. III _ Publ. 1917 - Page 2249

V. M. RIEGEL, now county superintendent of schools of Marion County, has been identified with school work for twenty years or more, and by education is also a well trained and qualified lawyer, though his preferences so far have been exercised in the field of teaching.
     Mr. Riegel was born in Fairfield County, Ohio, May 20, 1876, a son of J. M. and Mary (Norris) Riegel. His grandfather, George Riegel, was a native of Berks County, Pennsylvania, and subsequently moved to Fairfield County, Ohio, where he became a well to do farmer. The maternal grandfather, William Norris, was a native of Maryland and is also an early settler in Fairfield County, Ohio. Professor Riegel's parents were both born in Fairfield County, his father in 1847 and his mother in 1848. They were substantial farming people, were married in Fairfield County, and since retiring have lived in Cridersville. They are members of the Reformed Church and the father is a democrat in polities. Of their four children, three are now living : V. M.; Ralph, a teacher at Cridersville; and Purril,
who is teaching at Allentown, Ohio.
     V. M. Riegel spent his early life on his father's farm. He attended the country schools and the Pleasantville Academy, and then at intervals for three years he taught district school while attending the National Normal University at Lebanon, Ohio, from which he graduated in 1897. After that Mr. Riegel completed a course in law in the Ohio State University and was admitted to the bar in 1899. His work as a teacher was done in Fairfield County, at Dunbridge and Haskins in Wood County, and in 1910 he took charge of the schools at Prospect. He was soon recognized as one of the leading school men of Marion County and in 1914 was promoted from the Prospect schools to his present position as county superintendent. He was re-elected in 1916.
     In 1902 Mr. Riegel married Miss Blanche Mears. She was born in Putnam County, Ohio. Their three children are named Ormington, Alice and Paul. Both are members of the Presbyterian Church, and Mr. Riegel is affiliated with the Masons, the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, the Knights of Pythias and the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks. In politics he is a democrat.
Source: History of Northwestern Ohio - Vol. III _ Publ. 1917 - Page 2261

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