Dr. Emil Kuder (b. 1851, Stuttgart, Germany) was a distinguished physician and surgeon who practiced in Kansas for over thirty years. Educated at Tübingen University, he graduated in 1876 with a top medical degree after a rigorous seven-year program. He served in the Franco-Prussian War before moving to the United States in 1879, where he practiced in Pennsylvania before settling in Kansas in 1883. Dr. Kuder was highly respected in Coffeyville, where he established a successful practice. He was married to Elizabeth Wagner in 1881 and had six children. His contributions to medicine and community life were widely recognized.
Emil Kuder, M. D., is a man of distinction not only on account of his long practice for over thirty years in Kansas but also for his thorough scholarship and the varied experiences and associations of his career. He is a product of the best technical and university training of Germany, and prepared for the practice of medicine and surgery under some of the greatest masters of those subjects in Europe, before coming to America.
He was born at Stuttgart, Germany, August 31, 1851. His father, Joseph Kuder, was born in 1809 at Eslengen, Germany, and died in 1874 at the manufacturing Village of Gmund in Wuertemberg, not far from Stuttgart. Joseph Kuder was a soldier, and for forty-two years was a member of the regular army of his native kingdom or of the German Empire. At his death he ranked as colonel in the Thirteenth Regiment. He served actively in the War of 1866 against Austria and was in the Franco-Prussian war of 1870-71. Colonel Kuder married Magdalene Nagel, who was born at Gmund in Wuertemberg in 1809, and died there in 1864.
The only child of his parents, Dr. Emil Kuder had the best of advantages both at home and in German schools and institutions. He attended the public schools, the Lenten School, and prepared for college in the Real School, which would correspond to an American manual training school. He then entered Tuebingen University, where he was graduated in 1876 with No. 1 A degree, one of the highest degrees in medicine and surgery. This required a seven years’ course. In the meantime during 1870-71 he had fought with the armies of the Empire through the Franco-Prussian war, as a member of the One Hundred and Twentieth Regiment of Infantry. For two years he attended the clinics of the famous Doctor Muller at Stuttgart, and had his first individual experience in practice in that German city.
Doctor Kuder came to America in 1879. For two years he was located in practice at Philadelphia and for another two years at Hazelton, Pennsylvania. Following that came a year at Williamsport, Pennsylvania, and since 1883 he has been a Kansan. He practiced at Wichita until 1893, and since then has been a resident of Coffeyville, where he has enjoyed a special prestige as a physician and surgeon. His offices are in the Carey Building at the corner of Ninth and Walnut streets. He is an active member of the Montgomery County Medical Society.
Doctor Kuder has for the past twenty-three years been a member of Star Lodge No. 117, Independent Order of Odd Fellows, belongs to the Patriarchs Militant, Canton No. 114, and is captain of the Military Rank of Odd Fellows and assistant surgeon for the State of Kansas. His religious affiliation is with the German Lutheran Church, and politically he is independent, formerly having supported the democratic and for the last two elections the republican ticket.
Doctor Kuder’s home is at 116 West Seventh Street in Coffeyville. In 1881 at Hazeltou, Pennsylvania, he married Miss Elizabeth Wagner. Her father, Fred Wagner, was a shoemaker and died in 1881. Doctor and Mrs. Kuder are the parents of six children: Fred, who was born in Wichita in 1884 and is now connected with the Missouri Pacific Railway at Wichita; Eugene, born in 1887 at Wichita, a druggist at Parsons, Kansas; Katy, who was born at Wichita in 1889, married Fred Bixler, a merchant, and both are now deceased; Fannie, born at Coffeyville in 1892, is the wife of William Conuer, a painter and decorator living at Okanogan in the State of Washington; Julia, born at Coffeyville in 1898 and still at home; and Fern, born in 1902, and with his brother Eugene in Parsons.