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WILLIAM C. PENDERGRAFT, M. D.
Vol. 5, p. 1803, 1804

The most enlightened tenets of medical and surgical science have
found expression in the career of Dr. William C. Pendergraft, a
general practitioner of Hollis, Harmon County, since 1902, a leading
and progressive factor in business and financial circles, and a
potent influence in advancing the civic interests of Hollis and the
welfare of its people.

He was born in Polk County, Missouri, September 22, 1864, and is a
son of Joseph A. and Irene (SELF) Pendergraft, and a member of a
family which, originating in Germany, emigrated to England, came
thence to America in colonial days, and from its original settlement
in New York went during the pioneer days to Tennessee.

Joseph A. Pendergraft was born in 1838, in Cape Girardeau County,
Missouri, and as a young man went to Polk County, in the same state,
where he was married and where he subsequently engaged in farming and
stock-raising. Later he went to Arkansas and continued his
agricultural operations until removing to Western Texas, where he
lived on a ranch until 1899, and in that year came to Hollis,
Oklahoma, and lived a retired life until his death in 1913. While a
resident of Missouri, during the war between the states, Mr.
Pendergraft enlisted in the Confederate army and served four years
under PRICE and SHELBY, and toward the close of the struggle was
taken prisoner and confined in a Federal prison until peace was
proclaimed. He was a stalwart democrat in his political views, and a
lifelong member of the Christian Church, in which he served as elder
for many years. He was married in Polk County, Missouri, to Miss
Irene SELF, who was born in Tennessee, in 1835, and died in Polk
County, Missouri, in 1878, and they became the parents of six
children, as follows: L. J, who is the widow of J. N. HOFMAN, a
farmer, and resides in New Mexico; L. E., deceased, who was the wife
of W. H. Hofman, also deceased, who was a mechanic in the employ of
the Frisco Railroad Company for a period of forty years; S. E., who
is the wife of R. C. HODGES, a farmer and stockman of Hollis,
Oklahoma; J. M., who is an agriculturist of Harmon County; James C.,
who died in infancy; Mary E., who is the wife of M. C. DODD and
resides on the old homestead in Polk County, Missouri; and Dr.
William C., of this review.

William C. Pendergraft received a graded and high school education
in his native county, and after some preparation entered the Missouri
Medical College, at St. Louis, Missouri, which he attended two years.
He next entered the St. Louis College of Physicians and Surgeons,
from which he was graduated in 1892, with the degree of Doctor of
Medicine, and since that time, in 1915, has taken a post-graduate
course at the Chicago Post-Graduate Medical School. Doctor
Pendergraft entered upon the practice of his calling at Pleasant
Hope, Missouri, where he continued to maintain his office until 1898,
in that year going to a larger field at Springfield, in the same
state, that being his place of residence until 1901. Coming next to
Hollis, Oklahoma, he soon attracted to himself a large and
representative practice, and has continued to make this thriving
community his field of labor, his offices now being located in the
Hollis Drug Company's building on Broadway, corner of Main Street.
His practice is broad and general in its lines, and professionally he
may be said to belong to the emancipated class whose mind is open to
light and who sanction the beliefs of the past only insofar as they
are in harmony with the greater progress and enlightenment of the
present.

In his private practice he has had charge of the welfare of the most
representative families of Hollis, and has officiated at the birth of
two sets of triplets and one set of quadruplets, the latter born to
Mrs. F. M. KEYS, of Hollis, June 4, 1915. In this case all four are
girls, and it is the only case on record where all four have been of
one sex and where all have lived. Aside from his private practice,
Doctor Pendergraft is local surgeon for the Missouri, Kansas & Texas
Railroad and medical examiner for more than a dozen of the old-line
life insurance companies. He holds membership in the Harmon County
Medical Society, the Oklahoma Medical Society and the American
Medical Association, and has been health officer of Hollis since the
attainment of statehood. Doctor Pendergraft is one of those men who
may be said to have chosen well their vocation. Possessed of a kind,
sympathetic nature, a keen sense of discrimination, and a natural
taste for the various branches of his honored profession, he has
achieved a signal success. In politics he is a democrat, and was a
member of the First Oklahoma Legislature. With his family he belongs
to the Baptist Church.

Doctor Pendergraft's fraternal connections are numerous. He belongs
to Hollis Lodge No. 219, Ancient Free and Accepted Masons, in which
he has filled all chairs save that of master; Hollis Camp,
Independent Order of Odd Fellows, in which he is past grand; Hollis
Camp, Woodmen of the World and the Woodmen Circle, of which he is
medical examiner; the Modern Woodmen of America, of which he is
medical examiner; and the Fraternal Union. He belongs also to the
Commercial Club. The Doctor has also taken an active part in business
affairs and is vice president of the State National Bank of Hollis
and of the Hollis Drug Company, Incorporated.

In 1886, at Pleasant Hope, Missouri, Doctor Pendergraft was married
to Miss Lena MAYFIELD, daughter of the late H. B. Mayfield, a farmer,
and to this union there have been born three children: One who died
in infancy; Roy L., a senior in the medical department of the
Tennessee University; and Glen, who belongs to the freshman class at
the Hollis High School.

Transcribed for OKGenWeb by Donald E. Conley, 26 July 1999.

SOURCE: Thoburn, Joseph B., A Standard History of Oklahoma, An
Authentic Narrative of its Development, 5 v. (Chicago, New York: The
American Historical Society, 1916).