Dr. Frank L. Morse, a surgeon of St. Louis, was born in Savanna, Illinois, December 22, 1876, his parents being Charles and Amanda (Daniels) Morse. The father, a native of the state of New York, is descended from one of the families long represented in New York and previously in Massachusetts, a family of Dutch and English ancestry that was founded In America 1n colonial days. Charles Morse, removing westward, settled In Illinois in the early ’70s and in 1910 became a resident of Missouri. For many years he conducted a profitable lumber business but is now living retired. His wife, a native of Tennessee and a member of one of the old southern families, passed away June 26, 1899, in Savanna, Illinois.
Dr. Morse, the only child, was educated in the public and high schools of his native city and afterward determined upon the practice of medicine as a life work. With this end in view he matriculated in the old Beaumont Medical College in St. Louis, from which he was graduated in 1900 with the M. D. degree. He afterward served for a year as an interne in the St. Louis City Hospital and for eighteen months in the Missouri, Kansas & Texas Railroad Hospital at Sedalia, Missouri. On the expiration of that period he entered upon general practice in St. Louis and was thus engaged until 1916, since which time he has concentrated his efforts and his talents upon surgery and has developed a high degree of efficiency in this field. He belongs to both the St. Louis and Missouri State Medical Associations.
On the 22d of August, 1902, at Sedalia, Missouri, Dr. Morse was married to Miss Ellen Shoen, a native of Sweden, and they have become parents of two children: Viola, born in Pueblo, Colorado, January 15, 1903; and Ted, born in Maywood, Missouri, March 24, 1905.
Dr. Morse gives his political endorsement to the republican party and fraternally is a member of Mt. Moriah Lodge, No. 40, A. F. & A. M., also the chapter, commandery and the Mystic Shrine. He is likewise identified with the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, and he finds further diversion in study along electrical and mechanical lines. He worked his own way through college and has always been interested in things of an educational nature. He served as a surgeon of the twenty-first ward during the World war period and is well known as a contributor to medical journals, his writings frequently appearing in the best publications of the profession.