Arthur Richard Nash, M. D. A surgeon whose ability has brought him a rapidly growing reputation in southeastern Kansas, Dr. Arthur Richard Nash has practiced at Parsons for the past four years. He received his degree In medicine nearly twenty years ago, and has had a wide range of experience and opportunity in his profession since then.
He is of Irish stock. The Nashs were English originally and moved from there to Ireland. Doctor Nash is a grandson of a physician, Richard Nash, who spent his life in Ireland as a physician and surgeon. He died in County Tipperary at the age of fifty-two.
Richard Nash, Jr., father of Doctor Nash, was born in County Tipperary in 1840. His mother brought him to the United States in 1843 and he grew up at Chateaugay, New York, and at Pewankee, Wisconsin. He learned the trade of shoemaker, followed it a number of years and was also a shoe merchant. He was in active business at Oconomowoc, Wisconsin, until 1884, and then engaged in farming near St. Croix Falls in that state and in 1900 moved to Eilsworth, Wisconsin, where he now conducts a drug business. He is a republican, and for a number of years served as justice of the peace. He is also a Royal Arch Mason. Richard Nash married Phoebe Ann Laine, who was born in Vermont in 1849, and died at Ellsworth, Wisconsin, in 1914. Doctor Nash is the oldest of their children. Caroline died at Oconomowoc, Wisconsin, at the age of three years; Francis Raiph is superintendent of the schools at St. Croix Falls, Wisconsin; Cora Isabelle is the wife of Olaf Sundby, who has the leading general merchandise store at Ellsworth, Wisconsin.
Arthur Richard Nash was born while his parents resided at Oconomowoc, Wisconsin, on April 8, 1871. His parents took much interest in his early training, and from that source and also by making opportunities for himself he gained a very liberal education as a foundation for his professional work. Until he was seven years of age his instruction was looked after by Miss Noble in a select school at Oconomowoc. He then attended the public schools there and in that vicinity, afterwards was in the district schools near St. Croix Falls, and whether in school or on the outside his instruction was always under competent teachers. In 1889, at the age of eighteen he began teaching, and for three years followed that occupation and partly paid his own expenses while in college. Doctor Nash is a graduate of the Northern Indiana Normal School, now Valparaiso University, where be took his Bachelor of Science degree in 1894. He then entered the Bush Medical College at Chicago, the oldest medical college in the Middle West, and though completing the four years work in three he remained another year to get credit for the entire four years course. He graduated Doctor of Medieine in 1897. Beginning as a general practitioner he has gradually specialized and his time is now practically taken up with the work of surgery. He has attended clinics in the famous Mayo Brothers Hospital at Rochester, Minnesota, and has also taken post-graduate work at St. Paul and Chicago.
From 1897 to 1909 Doctor Nash practiced at Ellsworth, Wisconsin. He then spent three years at Del Norte, Colorado, where he was surgeon in the St. Joseph’s Sanitarium. Since coming to Parsons in 1912 he has specialized in surgery. His office is at 107½ South Central Avenue. He is an active member of the County and State Medical societies and the American Medical Association, and has served as city and township health officer back in his home town of Ellsworth, Wisconsin, also at Parsons and elsewhere.
Doctor Nash and his family reside at 1725 Chene Avenue in Parsons. He also owns a home in Ellsworth, Wisconsin. Politically he is an independent republican and is a member of the Catholic Church, belongs to the Parsons Chamber of Commerce and to Anamosa Council of the Knights of Columbus in Colorado.
In 1899 at Clayfield, five miles from Ellsworth, Wisconsin, he married Miss Ellen Louise Mallon, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. James Mallon. Her father, now deceased, was a farmer and stock raiser, making a specialty of Shorthorn cattle. Her mother is still living at Ellsworth, Wisconsin. Doctor and Mrs. Nash are the parents of five children: Marguerite Anna, born in 1900; Eleanor, born in 1902; Frances, born in 1904; Richard Arthur, born in 1907; and James Byron, born in 1910. All except the youngest were born in Ellsworth, Wisconsin, while James B. was born at Del Norte, Colorado.