Ida Clerke Woolsey, M.D.
Dr. Ida Clerke Woolsey, who has been engaged in the practice of medicine in Xenia since the completion of her college work in 1893, is a native of the neighboring Hoosier state, but has been a resident of Ohio since she was five years of age, her parents having moved from Indiana to Cincinnati when she was a child, and in the Queen City she grew to womanhood. The Woolseys have been identified with Xenia for many years. Doctor Woolsey's grandfather. Dr. Jeremiah Woolsey, of notable memory, having been one of the first real physicians to locate in that city and during his long residence there was one of the most conspicuous and influential figures in the professional life of the city. Dr. Jeremiah Woolsey had his office at the corner of Main and Detroit streets and was the first physician to give prominence to the fallacy of the old practice of "starving a fever." When he began to treat his fever patients by the reverse method it is recalled that there was no little local apprehension regarding the probable outcome of such a distinct departure from tradition, but his "feed a fever" theory soon proved its efficacy and the medical profession was advanced by so much. Dr. Jeremiah Woolsey also was one of the leaders in the labors of promoting the material interests of Xenia and was the chief promoter of the construction of the Springfield branch of the Pennsylvania railroad, the hne that runs through Xenia in Detroit street. In other ways he contributed of his services and his energies to the upbuilding and betterment of the community and at his passing left a good memory.
Dr. William Montgomery Woolsey, a son of Dr. Jeremiah Woolsey and father of Dr. Ida C. Woolsey, was born at Trenton, New Jersey, where the Woolseys had been established since colonial days, one of the well-to-do families of that city and of the city of Baltimore, and in Trenton he received his schooling, supplementing a thorough classical education by the study of medicine and in due time was licensed to practice medicine. For a time he maintained an office in Trenton and then came West, locating at Hamilton, in this state, where he for a time conducted a drug store in connection with his practice. He married in Cincinnati and later moved to Evansville, Indiana, but after a few years of practice there returned to Cincinnati, reentered the drug business in that city and there spent the rest of his life, quite successfully engaged in mercantile pursuits, his death occurring in 1883. His widow survived him about four years. She was born in Cincinnati, Hannah Clerke Hall, a daughter of Ezekiel and Elizabeth Hall, early and influential residents of that city, the latter of whom was one of the seven founders of the Cincinnati Orphans Asylum. The Halls came to Ohio from Baltimore and when they located in Cincinnati there was but one brick house in the place. The Hon. James C. Hall, a son of Ezekiel Hall and for two terms United States senator from Ohio, was one of the most prominent residents of Toledo during his day and, in association with Major James Oliver, bought and laid out one of the chief additions to that now thriving city.
To Dr. William Montgomery and Hannah Clerke (Hall) Woolsey were born eleven children, those besides the subject of this biographical review being as follow: Thompson, who died at Cincinnati when sixteen years of age; Montgomery Hall, who also died in youth; Samuel Parker, who went to the Northwest and married and established his home in Washington Territory; Mrs. Mary Robinson, who is living at Peru, Illinois, and who has two children, Ora and Eva; Martha Elizabeth, who died in Xenia in 1906; Clara Marie, who died in Cincinnati in 1875; Frances Virginia, who died during the days of her girlhood; James Hall, who married Therese Beatty, of St. Louis, and spent his last days in that city; William Hall, who died in youth, and George Walker, who married Mary Berger, of Connersville, Indiana, and moved from that city in 1886 to Altoona, Pennsylvania, where he died in 1888.
Ida Clerke Woolsey was but five years of age when her parents moved from Evansville, Indiana, to Cincinnati and in the latter city she grew to womanhood, receiving her early schooling in the public schools of that city. In 1870 she entered Vassar College at Poughkeepsie, New York, and followed a three-years course in that institution. In 1889 she entered the medical department of the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor and was graduated from that institution in 1892, having qualified as a practitioner in both the Regular and in the Homeopathic schools of medicine. She then for a year pursued a further and special course at Ann Arbor and in 1893 opened an office in Xenia and has ever since been engaged in practice in that city, making a specialty of the diseases of women and children. Doctor Woolsey is a member of the Second Presbyterian church.
From History of Greene County Ohio, Its People, Industries and Institutions, vol. 2. M.A.Broadstone, editor. B.F.Bowen & Co., Indianapolis. 1918