Dr. Frank J. Stanze, devoting his life to the practice of medicine and surgery in St. Louis, where his birth occurred November 4, 1879, is a son of Henry and Frances (Bertke) St Stanze, the latter a native of St. Louis and a daughter of Henry Bertke, who was born in Germany and became one of the early residents of this city. The father, Henry Stanze, was born in Germany, and arrived in America in the latter part of the ’30s, first settling at New Orleans, and in 1848 becoming a resident of St. Louis, where he resided until his death, on the 9th of June, 1890, when he was sixty-eight years of age. He was a veterinarian who practiced his profession with gratifying success. The mother survives and yet makes her home in St. Louis. Their family numbered three sons and two daughters, of whom three have passed away. The surviving members of the household are Henry and Frank J,. the former now department manager with the William Warner Chemical Company.
Dr. Stanze of this review was educated in the public schools of St. Louis and having determined upon the practice of medicine as a life work he then entered the Barnes University, from which he was graduated in 1909 with the M. D. degree. Prior to his graduation, however, he was engaged in the retail grocery business but since completing his professional course he has devoted himself to the practice of medicine and surgery, but specializes in the latter branch. He has comprehensive knowledge of anatomy and the component parts of the human body, the onslaughts made upon it by disease and the tendency bequeathed to the individual by progenitors. In fact he has studied the question most broadly and comprehensively and has been particularly skillful in the performance of surgical operations, his ability in this direction winning him a wide and well-merited reputation. For two years, in 1917 and 1918, he taught in the College of Physicians and Surgeons along the line of his specialty. During the war with Germany he served in the Medical Reserve Corps.
Dr. Stanze belongs to Magnolia Lodge, No. 626, A. F. & A. M. and politically he is a well known republican. Along strictly professional lines he is associated with the St. Louis, Missouri State and American Medical Associations and through the proceedings of these societies he keeps up with the modern scientific research and investigation concerning the onslaughts of disease and the laws of health. From 1907 until 1909 he served as health officer of St. Louis. He has never sought or desired official preferment outside of the strict path of his profession, and has ever concentrated his attention and labors upon the duties which devolve upon him as a physician and surgeon.