Dr. F. J. Pope, a graduate of Rush Medical College of the class of 1875, has continuously engaged in the practice of his profession in Racine for forty years and has long occupied a prominent position as one of the leading surgeons of the city. He was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. November 2, 1852, and is a son of C. A. and Emily (Hagan) Pope, the former a native of Pennsylvania and the latter of Germany. The father went to Germany to attend school in Bavaria, becoming a student in a theological college there, and while in that country he met and married Miss Hagan. He became a missionary of the church and afterward went to Quincy, Illinois, where he accepted a pastoral charge. Subsequently he was at Warsaw, Illinois, for six years, at Bethlehem, Effingham County, for three years, and at Oshkosh, Wisconsin, for a short time. Later he engaged in preaching in the Lutheran church in Kenosha and afterward in Wrightstown, Wisconsin, where he passed away in 1907. He had devoted his entire life to moral teaching and his labors resulted largely in the uplift of those who came under his guidance and influence. His wife survived him until 1910 and was laid to rest at Green Bay. Wisconsin.
F. J. Pope largely spent his boyhood in Quincy and Warsaw, Illinois, where he pursued his public school course. He studied the drug business at Oshkosh, Wisconsin, and there remained for three years, after which he determined to make the practice of medicine his life work and began reading under the direction of Dr. J. Copp Noyes of Oshkosh, who remained his preceptor for two years. At the end of that time he entered Rush Medical College of Chicago and completed his course with the class of 1875. For a year thereafter he practiced in that city and then came to Racine, where he has since remained, his ability bringing him to the front among the medical practitioners of this city, where for forty years he has been honored as an able and conscientious representative of the profession.
In 1877 Dr. Pope was married to Miss Eugenie Wolfhilgel. They have nine children: Edgar, who is in charge of the office of the Case Threshing Machine Company at Columbus, Ohio F. W., who has become a physician and is associated with his father in practice: Rosa, at home; Louis, who is a graduate of the State University of Wisconsin and is now a civil engineer, practicing his profession in Madison; Eleanore, the wife of G. M. Goepfert, of Racine; Charles, a student of agriculture, and three who died in infancy.
Dr. Pope is a member of the Knights of Pythias lodge of Racine and his family is identified with the First Congregational church. In politics he is a democrat and has served on the United States pension board under Presidents Cleveland and Wilson. He has likewise been a member of the school board and the cause of education finds in him a stalwart champion. Along strictly professional lines he has connection with the City Medical Society. the Racine County and Wisconsin State Medical Associations and the American Medical Association and he keeps thoroughly informed concerning ail the scientific investigations and advances made by the profession in their efforts to find the key to the complex mystery which we call life. Few, if any, of Racine’s physicians have so long been actively engaged in practice here as Dr. Pope, and he is greatly beloved in many a household to which he has been called for professional service.