DR. EDWIN BURCHETT

Dr. Edwin Burchett, who since 1903 has practiced medicine in Seymour, Iowa, has in the course of the ten years he has been engaged in his profession in this city built up a practice which extends to all classes of people in the city and surrounding country. His services are given freely and indiscriminately to rich or poor, wherever his help is needed, and by his knowledge and experience he has guided many a patient through crisis and brought him back to health. To most of his patients Dr. Burchett is not only a physician but is more than that—he is a friend and adviser and by his kindly yet decisive way he instills that confidence and assurance of results which is half the cure, for he well knows that all medical knowledge and all medicines are but poor, ineffectual mediums if they are not helped along by the personality of the man who inspires his patient with a desire to become well, keeps alive in him hope to recover and brings to him the supreme confidence of an ultimate happy outcome. Dr. Burchett was born in Van Buren county, this state, July 2, 1879, and is a son of E. J. and Louisa (Roby) Burchett, the father a native of Ohio and the mother of Indiana. The father was a son of B. B. Burchett, whose parents died when he was but a child. He was born in Virginia of French descent, made his home in Michigan and Ohio for some time and at an early age came to Iowa, where his son E. J. the father of our subject, and Louisa Roby were subsequently married. The grandfather first located in Van Buren county where he passed most of his life, although he died in Davis county. E. J. Burchett, the father of our subject, always followed agricultural pursuits which ultimately brought him prosperity. In 1909 he went to Appanoose county, where he has since made his home. In his political views he is a democrat and his religious faith finds expression in membership in the Methodist church. Mr. and Mrs. E. J. Burchett had one child, our subject.

Dr. Edwin Burchett was reared and spent his boyhood days in a well-to-do home and in early life attended the country schools in the vicinity of his father’s farm. Although he was brought up among agricultural surroundings he saw a higher aim in life in following one of the professions and decided on that of medicine as the one to which he would like to devote his services. He became a student at the Chicago College of Physicians and Surgeons and graduated from that institution in 1903, starting in practice in Seymour in the latter part of that year, and here he has since remained. Dr. Burchett can look back with pride upon ten years of successful practice in his line and many are his patients who place in his implicit faith and would trust no other with their most precious possession—their health. During his later years Dr. Burchett has busied himself more or less along the line of surgery and there are notable operations to his credit which he performed in this county. Outside of his private practice he also acts as the local surgeon for the Rock Island Railroad Company. In addition to his professional labors he is identified with the interests of the community as one of the founders and promoters of the Peoples Savings Bank, of which he is vice president. In this connection he has proved himself a man of insight into financial conditions, a man of initiative and yet of conservative judgment.

Dr. Burchett married on the 1^st of June, 1909, Miss Mary Kirby, a member of the well know family of Seymour. He is democratic in his politics and is interested in his party although his arduous duties along professional lines have precluded any active participation in public affairs. His fraternal relations are with the blue lodge of Masons and he is also a Shriner and a member of the Benevolent Protective Order of Elks. He keeps in touch with the trend of the times along professional lines and with the latest of discoveries and methods in the world of medical science through the medium of his membership in the county, city and national medical societies, and also as a member of the American Association of Railway Surgeons. Mrs. Burchett is a member of the Methodist church. Dr. Burchett is successful in the true sense of the word. A man unusually broad-minded and intelligent, he is of wide experience and never mercenary or grasping and has become a factor for good along his specific line in the community. Wherever his help is needed he gives the best he has in him. To get a foothold along medical lines and to make advancement is proverbially slow, but he has demonstrated his ability as each year his practice has grown in volume and by his sterling qualities of character he has won the high regard of all with whom he has come in contact.

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