Fred G. Priestly, M. D. A resident practitioner of Frederick since the year 1902, Dr. Fred G. Priestly has become well known in medical circles of Southwest Oklahoma, and particularly in Tillman County, where he has attracted to himself a large and representative professional business and has built up a reputation as a thoroughly learned and conscientious physician and surgeon. Doctor Priestly was born at High Point. Missouri, January 25, 1864, and is a son of E. T. and Polly Ann (Sun) Priestly. On his mother’s side he is a member of an old family of Kentucky, where her grandfather settled on his arrival from Germany, and also descends from some of the earliest settlers of Arkansas.

E. T. Priestly was born in Lincolnshire, England, in 1829; died at Siloam Springs, Arkansas, in 1903. He was reared and educated in his native land, where he prepared for the ministry of the Methodist Episcopal Church, and was twenty-one years of age when he emigrated to the United States. For a number of years he was engaged in preaching in Missouri and filled various charges, but in 1867 removed to Fayetteville, Arkansas, and later went to Siloam Springs, in the same state, where his death occurred. Mrs. Priestly was born in Arkansas in 1830, and died at Siloam Springs in 1904, the mother of four children: Harriet Louisa, who is the wife of Mr. Shelton, a farmer of Pleasant Hill, Illinois; Dr. Fred G., of this notice; Maggie, who married George T. Thurmon, a merchant of Siloam Springs, Arkansas; and George, who was a machinist and died in the State of Montana in 1904 at the age of twenty-six years.

The public schools of Fayetteville, Arkansas, furnished Doctor Priestly with the foundation for his education, and when his preliminary training was completed he went to the University of Fayetteville, which he attended for three years. He left that institution in 1885 and bean to clerk for a merchant, being thus engaged until 1889. In the meantime, however, he had taken the first course in medicine at the Memphis Hospital Medical College, subsequently took the second course, and finally took the third course and was graduated in 1892, with the degree of Doctor of Medicine. He has taken postgraduate courses at the Chicago Post-Graduate College, and in 1914 took a like course at the Chicago Polyclinic. Doctor Priestly entered upon the practice of his profession in Benton County, Arkansas, in 1892, and there remained until the fall of 1902. By this time he felt he had the experience, knowledge and training to fit him for service in a wider field, and he accordingly came to Frederick, Oklahoma, where he has since been engaged in a general medical and surgical practice, his office now being located in the McFadden Building, 214½ Grand Avenue. He holds membership in the Tillman County Medical Society, the Oklahoma State Medical Society and the American Medical Association, and stands high in the esteem of his fellow practitioners. He is politically a democrat, and served as health officer of Tillman County until his resignation, January 1, 1915. He has various business connections at Frederick, and is a director and stockholder in the National Bank of Commerce. He stands high in Masonry, and at this time is a member of Frederick Lodge No. 349, Ancient, Free and Accepted Masons; Frederick Chapter No. 41. Royal Arch Masons, and Frederick Commandery No. 19. Knights Templar. With his family he attends the Methodist Episcopal Church. ’

Doctor Priestly was married in 1885, while a resident of Arkansas, to Miss Virginia Frances McMullen, of Texas, who died in Arkansas. Three children were born to this union: Mack, who is postmaster at Decatur, Arkansas; Nolia, who is a trained nurse and resides in the State of Washington; and Thomas, who is a student in the preparatory college at Clarence, Oklahoma.