Joseph C. Dodds, M. D., B. L. Long identified with Champaign County as a physician and surgeon and also as a citizen and business man, Doctor Dodds has lived in this county since he was ten years of age.
He was born on Long Island, New York, June 15, 1864. At the age of ten he came to Champaign to live with his uncle, Dr. J. G. Chambers, brother of his mother. Here Doctor Dodds was educated, graduating from the Urbana High School, from the University of Illinois with the class of 1886, attended the University of Michigan Medical School and in 1889 graduated M. D. from Northwestern University at Chicago.
For twenty-five continuous years Doctor Dodds practiced medicine in Champaign County. He was an interne in the Marine Hospital of Chicago, and for some years was on the staff of the Kankakee Eastern Hospital and was district surgeon for the Illinois Central Railway between Gilman and Effingham. In 1908 he was appointed state medical director of the Modern Woodmen of America, and reappointed in 1911.
In 1901 Doctor Dodds moved to Denver, Colorado, where he practiced a year and following that for nine years was located at Tolono, Illinois. While at Tolono he held the various offices of the village from mayor down, and his present home is at 622 West Hill Street in Champaign, where he owns a beautiful home. He is also one of the principal stockholders in the Twin City Ice and Cold Storage Company, of which he is manager and formerly was secretary and treasurer.
Doctor Dodds is a member of the County and State Medical Society, is a director and the vice president of Burnham Library Board, is a Knight Templar Mason and Woodman, a member of the Country Club, and his wife is an active Presbyterian.
January 1, 1891, Doctor Dodds married Miss Mina Brown of Newport, Indiana. They have three children: Eva, wife of Harry B. Crowder of Seattle, Washington; Josephine, a member of Chi Omega Sorority and a graduate of the University of Illinois, class of 1917; and Donald C., a graduate of the Champaign High School and a member of the Delta Tau Delta Fraternity, of three years’ standing in the University of Illinois. When Battery F was organized he volunteered and was in Texas with the battery. He is now a corporal in Battery F with the One Hundred and Forty-ninth United States Field Artillery of the Forty-second Division in France.