Finley Ellingwood

Physician, an M.D. of Bennett Medical College, Chicago, with an office in Chicago and later in the family home at 2209 Central Street, Evanston. He wrote medical textbooks and published the journal Ellingwood's Therapeutist. A Methodist, Sunday School superintendent and member of the church's official board. His son Cudge remembered that he "never turned down anyone".

Born at Manchester, Indiana, and taken to Illinois at four or five. He was a carpenter from about fourteen, taught school, and from 1873 was deputy clerk of the Iroquois County court; "He began the study of medicine July 10, 1871. The sudden death of his father, a few months later, threw the entire support of the family" on him (source). In January 1875, aged 22, he became guardian of his orphaned brother Ellsworth (record); in 1880 the two brothers were keeping house together at Manteno, Finley a physician and Ellsworth a printer (record). He had gone to the Kankakee city and high school (his AMA card). M.D., Bennett Medical College, 1878; practised at Manteno, 1878-84; then professor of chemistry and of materia medica at Bennett, editor of the Chicago Medical Times, founder of Ellingwood's Therapeutist (1906/7), author of the American Materia Medica, Therapeutics and Pharmacognosy (1915), and president of the National Eclectic Medical Association, 1919. "He has always been a Republican in politics, but at present, with three sons in the Government service, he is a staunch advocate of President Wilson" (1918). The association's obituary: "tall and slender, growing heavier in later years ... In his own family he maintained a musical orchestra."

He went to Pasadena in May 1920 for his health and died at his son's home there, 614 South Lake Avenue, on 26 June, of chronic interstitial nephritis; he was cremated at Mountain View two days later (death certificate; notice). The American Medical Association's file has his licence in Illinois in 1878 and his career at Bennett (record).

Children (from the memoir and the 1918 biography; in 1900 Jennie had borne seven, six living): Elma Jane, Laura, Elliott Lee "Jim", a son (Ellsworth) born 1888 who lived only a few weeks, Finley Fitch "Wink", Richard Everett "Cudge" and Lloyd "Gog". His brothers and sisters: Adeline (Mrs. Kay, mother of Wendell Kay of Watseka), Jennie (Mrs. Plummer), Nancy, Mary, Ellsworth, a printer at Pueblo, Colorado, and Minnie; three more died young.

In the censuses: in 1880 a single physician at Manteno, Kankakee County, Illinois (record); in 1900 a physician at Evanston, with Jennie and the children (record); in 1910 a physician and editor there (record); in 1920 a publisher there, with Jennie, Richard, Lloyd and their granddaughter Jennie Harriet Cother (record).

Open questions

• His birth year: 1852 by his own account, but "4" in the 1860 census, with a sister Nancy aged 8.
• His obituary in Ellingwood's Therapeutist (Lloyd Library, Cincinnati).