Page:History of Southeast Missouri 1912 Volume 1.djvu/707

 HISTORY OF SOUTHEAST MISSOURI 623 dent and general manager. In addition to this large interest he has considerable town property and also six hundred and sixty acres of land near Conran, which is being cleared and farmed. He is very loyal to Mis- souri, in which state all of his success has been achieved. Mr. and Mrs. Gwyn have an interesting family of seven children. Bessie attends Hardin College, and Frank, Judge, Myrtle, Tom, Burley and Dan are all at home. Mrs. Gwyn and five of the children, Bessie, Frank, Judge, Myrtle and Tom, are all members of Missiouar.y Bai^tist church. Mr. Gwyn is one of the most enthusiastic of local lodge men and holds membership in no less than six orders. He is a Mason, being affiliated with the time-honored oi'der at Cardwell and having attained to the thirty-second degree, and he also belongs to the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, the Knights of Pythias, the Woodmen of the World, the Modern Wood- men of America and Ben Hur. He is the friend of good government and of a public spirited type of citizenship. John Marshall Finney, M. D. At a very early age a boy begins to make plans for his future career; he is positive as to the direc- tion this career will take, but very frequently before he has finished his schooling he branches out into something entirely differ- ent; sometimes the chajige is brought about by a series of circumstances over which he has no control. Sometimes he himself luidergoes such radical changes that he no longer feels any inclination towards those things he formerly loved. In the case of John Mar- shall Finney, when he was in the grammar school he had already decided on his profes- sion and he never changed his mind. Since that time everything he studied or read was selected with a view to his chosen profession. He was bom at Vienna in Johnson county, Illinois, February 18, 1852, and was the son of G. P. and Rachael (Latham) Finney, both of Avhom were born in Illinois. The Finney family originally came from Virginia and were early settlers in Illinois. Mr. and Mrs. Finne.y had three children, one daughter and two sons, of whom John Marshall is the youngest. His brother, W. N. Finney, is a resident of California. Mr. Finney died when he was forty-three years of age and his wife at about the same age. After his mother's death, when he was eleven years old, John Marshall Finney went to live with an uncle. Dr. J. F. Latham, a farmer of Saline county, Illinois. After he had finished the grammar school course, he attended the Ewing College, preparatoiy to the study of medicine. When he was only sixteen years of age he went to Eldorado, Illinois and there read with a doctor ancl practised under his instructions. He next at- tended a medical college in St. Louis, where he also practiced. In 1873 he came to Mis- souri, after practicing in Illinois for a short time, and located at Marble Hill. After three years of successful practice, he located at Laflin in Bollinger county, but very near to Cape Girardeau county. His practice was in both counties. For thirty years he kept up this hard life, traveling long distances to vi.sit his patients. In 1906 he came to Cape Gir- ardeau, with the intention of giving up his visiting and intending to have only an office practice. He established a drug store in the town, carrying a very full line of drugs of all descriptions and medicines. His patients will not, however, be contented to let him de- vote his time to his drug store, but they come to him from long distances, although he onl.y visits in Cape Girardeau. For the past twenty years he has been a member of the Southeastern Missouri Medical Society, being one of the oldest practitioners in this part of southeastern Missouri. In 1877 be married Mary G. Manning, daughter of George and Louisa Manning of Leopold, Missouri. Dr. and Mrs. Finney had a family of eleven children, nine of whom are living now (1911), as follows: John Marshall, Jr., a physician near Leopold, Missouri ; Norman J. in the United States Army, located at the Philippine Islands; Louisa Ann, wife of J. H. Price of Orange, Texas ; Francis M., attending normal school at Cape Girardeau ; Rachael, Julia, George G., William Paul and Mary Gertrude are all at home with their parents. Norman was the only child who was not born in southeastern Missouri. He was born in St. Louis, while the doctor was living there attending medical college in 1884, tak- ing a. special course of stud.v. The doctor is a member of the Masonic Order and is a master Mason. He is a Demo- ovflf in political sympathies : he is greatly in- terested in politics, but holds no office, nor has lie any desire for political honors for him- self. He finds his time fully taken up with the duties of his own profession and the