Tipton has been privileged to have the services of a number of dedicated doctors. Excerpts from Dr. S.H. Redmon's obituary are reprinted here as he had experiences typical of all Tipton's early doctors.
The entire community was saddened by the death late yesterday of one of its oldest and best loved citizens, Dr. Redmon. Dr. Redmon had been in failing health of some time, but had been bedfast only a little over a month.
Squire Howard Redmon was born August 19, 1854, on a farm near Clarksburg, Mo., and died at his home here May 7, 1941, at the age of 86. One of seven children born to William and Sarah Howard Redmon, he was the oldest to reach maturity and the last to survive.
Dr. Redmon moved in his early youth to California, Mo., then to a farm just east of Tipton where he lived until he reached maturity. In the late sixties, his father tied a little trunk onto the back of a buggy and together they drove to Columbia, where the son was enrolled in the State University, then a very small school. At the end of his training there, he entered the St. Louis Medical School, from which he was graduated in the early seventies. After traveling through the west with his brother Charlie, he settled down here to practice medicine with offices in the City Hotel building where his brother had a large drugstore, which was later owned and operated for many years by his brother-in-law, S.W. Hurst.
His first wife, Marie Bower, of Bunker Hill, Ill., lived less than a year after their marriage in 1880. In 1882, he was married to Sallie Lucy Cockrell, of Harper's Ferry, West Va., whose ancestors fought in the Revolutionary War, and a cousin of Gen. Robert E. Lee. To this union were born two children, a son, William Lee, who survives and a daughter Marie, who died in 1885.
Like his father before him, Dr. Redmon was a pioneer in his profession. He read widely, and was often among the first to try new methods. Always true to the Hippocratic Oath, he put the patient ahead of any ideal of personal reward, and many are the miles he drove and the hours he spent in trying to alleviate human suffering wherever and however he found it. Some of his experiences were epics of human drama. On one occasion he swam the Moreau in the dark to reach a woman in childbirth. He found her at the point of death. He had read of blood transfusions, but he had never seen one, much less performed one. He fashioned equipment out of what he had at hand, gave the woman a transfusion and saved both her and the child. Another time while he was railroad physician for this division, he was called to the scene of a wreck, where he found a man pinned beneath the engine, in grave danger of being burned to death. To release the man, he had to amputate his leg on the spot. He performed operations by candlelight, on kitchen tables, often with very meager equipment. Sometimes he was paid, oftener he was not. But he never refused his kindly services.
He was also followed in the footsteps of his father in his devotion to his church. Dr. William Redmon was a member of the first Christian Church in Missouri. Later he helped establish the first Christian Church in Moniteau County, after which he became a charter member of the Tipton Christian Church. For half a century Dr. S.H. Redmon had served as an elder of the church and for many years was superintendent of the Sunday School, giving liberally of his time and means to its Support. He also was a member of the Masonic Lodge.
For some years, he, with S.W Hurst, owned and operated the Redhurst Jersey Farm. Together they built up one of the best Jersey herds in this part of the country.
Some years ago he retired from active practice because of failing eyesight.
Dr. Redmon will live long in the hearts of his friends for his friendliness his generosity and his unfailing loyalty. What more can we say of him than that he was--a Christian gentleman?