Joseph L. Eyman, M. D. In the profession of medicine and surgery few Kansas physicians have dispensed their services more widely and more successfully than Dr. Joseph L. Eyman of El Dorado, He is a most loyal Kansan. Coming to the state when a child with his parents, he began the practice of his profession twenty-one years later and had witnessed the gradual change and transformation which have made Kansas a highly developed agrienltural and industrial section from what was within his personal recollection an open prairie. Doctor Eyman had traveled over many of the states of the Union, and it is his ardent conviction that no state presents so many all around advantages as the Sunflower commonwealth. It is with more than ordinary satisfaction that he contemplates the prospect of spending the rest of his days in Kansas. Doctor Eyman had built a fine modern brick residence and office at the corner of Fourth and Gordy Streets in the heart of El Dorado. His home is attractive from every point of view and a triumph architecturally.
A native of Pennsylvania, Joseph L. Eyman was born at Kittanning in Armstrong County February 23, 1860, a son of J. W. and Rebeca (Richie) Eyman. His parents were natives of Pennsylvania, his father of Pittsburg and his mother of Templeton, Armstrong County. The Eyman family was founded in America prior to the Revolutionary war by three German brothers, Abram, Isaac and Jacob. Abram loeated at Wellsville, Ohio, Jacob at Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, while Isaac was a typical frontiersman, never content to settle long in one community and always living well in advance of the main stream of civilization.
Doctor Eyman is a great-great-grandson of Jacob Eyman, one of these three brothers. The family had made a most ereditable record in American wars. Jacob Eyman, the immigrant, fought for the American colonies in the struggle for independence. His son Jacob, Jr., Doctor Eyman’s great-grandfather, was a soldier in the war of 1812. The father of Doctor Eyman was a member of the Sixty-third Regiment of Pennsylvania Infantry during the Civil war and saw active service in the Army of the Potomac.
J. W. Eyman came to Kansas with his family in 1867. One year he spent at Atchison, and then removed to Granada in Nemaha County, where he took up a homestead. That claim he developed as a good farm and ocoupied it until 1908, when he sold his property and removed to El Dorado in order that Doctor Eyman might give better attention to the mother, who was then in poor health J. W. Eyman died at El Dorado July 8, 1912, aged eighty-two years. The widowed mother is still living at El Dorado, now eighty-four. There were eight children: G. M., of Kansas City, Kansas; Joseph L.; J. H. and W. H., twins, both living at Moline, Kansas; Ella, wife of Genos Reeder, now a resident of Oklahoma; Neta, wife of M. B. Hitchcock, of Kansas City, Missouri; Ida, who died in 1894; and Molly, who died in 1895.
Doctor Eyman was six years of age when his parents came to Kansas. His early instruction was in the public schools of this state, but in 1874 he returned to Pennsylvania and attended Dayton Academy in Dayton, that state. He remained there a student four years, and on returning to Kansas taught school in Wabannsee County for two years. He next entered Jefferson Medical College at Philadelphia, and from there tranaferred his professional studies to Northwestern University Medical School in Chicago, where he was graduated M. D. February 25, 1887.
Doctor Eyman had had an active experience as a physician and surgeon for thirty years. His first practice was in Marshall County, Kansas, four years at Bigelow and three years at Frankfort. In 1895 he became a Government physician, and was located at Sun Dance, Wyoming, and Ekalaka, Montana. He continued his counection with the Government until 1895, when he returned to Frankfort, Kansas, praeticing there until 1904. In that year he removed to El Dorado, and buying a ranch west of town became associated with his son in the cattle business for two years. He then resumed active practice at El Dorado, and had built up a fine reputation as a most capable physician and a very thorough and careful surgeon. Doctor Eyman is local surgeon for the Missouri Pacific Railway, and is a member of the United States board of pension examiners, being its secretary. For three years he was conneeted with the regular army as surgeon in Montana, Wyoming and Dakota.
Doctor Eyman is a member of the American Medical Association, and had fraternal affiliations with the Masonic order, the Independent Order of Odd Fellows and the Knights of Pythias. He is a democrat in politics and a member of the Christian Church.
Doctor Eyman had been twice married. His first wife was Miss Harriet F. Smarr, of Grenada, Kansas. Of their two children the only one now living is Charles, a dentist at Bismarck, North Dakota. For his second wife Doctor Eyman married at Wichita in 1906, Miss Amanda F. Smarr, of Horton, Kansas. Doctor Eyman reared an adopted daughter, Sylvia Eyman. She possesses unusual musical talent and was given every advantage to perfect her native endowment. She finished a musical education, and before marrying taught in the high school at Springfield, Missouri. She is now the wife of John Howard, of Sylvia, Wisconsin.