Dr. Charles E. Houser. America has lately been designated in a celebrated cartoon as “The Melting Pot That Wouldn’t Melt.” Whatever the truth of that statement may be, every thinking individual can locate in his mind one or more instances to prove the contrary–that foreign blood will, with the passing of time, melt into genuine American citizenship. This is notably true in the case of the Houser family, of German ancestry, coming to American shores in Revolutionary times, and identified with America and her history down through the changing years, to the present day.

Dr. Charles E. Houser, practicing physician and surgeon of Vici, Oklahoma, is a representative of that family. He was born in Putnam, Illinois, March 18, 1860, and is the son of John Houser, born in Ohio in 1836, and the grandson of Phillip Houser, born in Pennsylvania in 1804.

Phillip Houser moved from his native state to Ohio and thence to Missouri, where he was a pioneer stock raiser and general- farmer. He was a successful man, and a man who was held in general high esteem throughout his section of the country. He died in 1864. His son, John Houser, moved out of his native state, Ohio, and settled in Putnam, Illinois, when he was still a very young man. He married in Putnam, and in the year 1866 he made his way with his family to Missouri and settled in Mercer County. He lived there, engaged in rural pursuits, until 1894, when he went to Texas. Five years later he left that state and came to Oklahoma, settling in Dewey County, on a homestead tract of 160 acres. This land he sold after he had proven title to the satisfaction of the government, and at the present time he is living on his farm one mile east of Vici. This is a well cultivated tract of 120 acres, which he acquired soon after he had disposed of his government land. He has been a farmer and stockman all his life, and has always enjoyed a great deal of success in that line. He is a Mason, and in politics is republican.

Mr. Houser married Nancy Bailey, born in New York State in 1833. She died in Mercer County, Missouri, in 1880, leaving four children, the eldest of them being Doctor Houser of this review. Morris L., the second born, is a farmer and lives nine miles southeast of Vici. Oswin W. is also an Oklahoma farmer, and Williams B. has a fine farm adjoining that of his father, one mile to the east of Vici.

Charles E. Houser attended the public schools in Mercer County, Missouri, and was graduated from the high school in Lineville, Iowa, with the class of 1880. Following that he studied telegraphy and was with the Metropolitan Lines in Chicago for two years, and later was assistant to the operator at Lineville, Iowa, for the Rock Island Road. Each of these positions gave him a valuable experience. In 1881 he became engaged in teaching and for the next eight years he was occupied in the teaching profession in the public schools of Missouri and Kansas. In 1889 he began the study of medicine in the Keokuk Medical College, and he was graduated with the class of 1891, degree of M. D. In the same year he established a practice in Millgrove, Missouri, where he remained until 1896. He then located in Marion, Missouri, spending two years there, and in 1898 he settled in Aulville, Missouri, where he was occupied professionally until 1906. It was in that year that he severed connections with that community and came to Vici, where he has since been engaged in practice along general medical and surgical lines. He has his offices in the Houser Building, on Broadway.

Doctor Houser has augmented his training by a postgraduate course in the Chicago Medical College and Polyclinic, and has constantly studied to keep abreast of the times in his profession, by that he is one of the best equipped medical men to be found in this section of the state.

In 1912 Doctor Houser, a republican in politics, was appointed under President Taft, postmaster of Vici, which office he held until August, 1914. He is a member of numerous fraternal orders, prominent among them being the Masonic order, in which he has Ancient Free and Accepted Masons and Eastern Star affiliations. Other fraternal societies in which he has membership are the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, of Gentry, Missouri; the Modern Woodmen of America, Vici Camp No. 11310, and the Mystic Workers, of Aulville, Missouri. He was at one time a member of the Knights of Pythias, but has lately withdrawn from that order. In all these societies Doctor Houser is prominent and popular, and he 1ms a wide circle of friends in and about the city.

Doctor Houser was married in Ravenna, Missouri, in 1896, to Miss Dora E. Coates, daughter of Jesse Coates, a farming man of Kansas, now deceased. One child has been born to Doctor and Mrs. Houser–Jessie Gwendolyn, born March 5, 1902. She is now a student in the Vici High School.