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JAMES P. MCRAE, M. D.
Vol. 3, p. 1007

The life of the pioneer doctor in the Indian country is much like
that of the early-day missionary, particularly in the respect of
travel over a wide and virgin country. While the missionary came
first-indeed, coincidentally with the removal of the Indians to the
West seventy or eighty years ago, the hardships that he endured were
hardly greater than those which beset the career of the doctor who
came many years later. The white man may be said to have been a
pioneer of the Chickasaw country who settled in it eighteen years
ago, for since that time most of the important development of the
territory has been accomplished.

Of this class of pioneer physicians is Dr. James P. MCRAE, now
enjoying a large and profitable practice at Bromide. He was among the
few physicians eighteen years ago who frequently drove twenty miles
to make a professional call, traveling over an unsettled country
practically without roads and following the trails and paths
traversing wide spaces of virgin timber, tall grass and the poorly
cultivated lands of Indians who had as yet learned little of the
essential elements of agriculture. It was in 1898 that Doctor McRae
came to the Chickasaw country and began the practice of medicine,
having pursued his medical studies to a degree that admitted him to
practice. Two years later he graduated from the Keokuk Medical
College at Keokuk, Iowa. Prior to that time he had spent two years in
the Fort Worth Medical College at Fort Worth, Texas. His first
practice was done at Eagleton, which occupied the site of the present
Town of Coleman. Later he spent a year at Wapanucka, three years at
Ardmore, one year at Quincy, Illinois, and established his permanent
home in Bromide in 1911.

Born in Labelle, Missouri, in 1869, Doctor McRae is a son of Simeon
and Julia (THRASHER) McRae. His father, was a farmer, moved to
Grayson County, Texas, in 1881, and lived there until his death in
1893. The paternal grandfather was a pioneer settler in Northeast
Missouri, and in the years prior to the Civil war owned a large body
of land and worked it with slave labor. Doctor McRae's mother also
belonged to an early family in Marion County, Missouri. Doctor McRae
has three brothers: Charles N. McRae, a farmer near Walters,
Oklahoma; John T. McRae, of Quincy, Illinois; George W. McRae, a
resident of Missouri; and three sisters who live at Direct, Texas.

The literary education of Doctor McRae was acquired when a boy in
Texas, chiefly in the public schools, and he also attended the Basin
Springs Academy at Basin Springs that state. He was married at
Labelle, Missouri, in 1892, to Miss Mary A. ARMSTRONG, whose father,
Dr. J. M. Armstrong, was an early practitioner in Missouri and served
as a surgeon in the Confederate army. Doctor and Mrs. McRae have four
children: Ira J., who is editor of the Bromide Herald; Mrs. Melvin
PIERCE, wife of a stockman living near Bromide; Andrew, aged sixteen;
and Donald, aged twelve, both at home with their parents. Doctor
McRae is a member of the Masonic Lodge, and belongs to the various
local organizations that tend toward the development of the
community. He has been successful in his profession, and is a member
in high standing of the county and state medical societies.

Typed for OKGenWeb by: Dorothy Marie Tenaza, Dec. 13, 1998.