He was a favorite Uncle of mine who had a really interesting life.
Dr. Burns was at Brady in 1900, to Maxwell area about 1911. In 1916 he married Thelma Cloar. The record of this marriage can be found at the Garvin County courthouse in Pauls Valley. They lived in Stratford. His office was upstairs in the Bayless Drug Store. Thelma died in 1929 and Dr. Burns then married Effie Lynn of Pontotoc County. They lived in Stratford until sometime in the 1940s when they moved to Stonewall.
Effie taught school at Stratford all the years they lived in Stratford..
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The genial ex-Arkansawyer who came to what is now Oklahoma in 1904, practiced medicine until recently, when his health forced him to retire.
Dr. Burns practiced continuously from 1898 until his recent retirement.
He left Arkansas in 1904 to come to Indian Territory, settling at Hennepin, west of Davis. In 1899 he graduated with a degree in medicine from Vanderbilt University but he'd begun practicing a year earlier.
He was the epitome of the 'old-fashioned practitioner'. He did everything from delivering babies (and changing them, when the need arose), to pulling teeth. In 1 954 look-back through the years, he found that he had delivered 4,035 babies.
Never one to rely on the old days entirely, he welcomed the advent of modern methods, readily accepted the antibiotics but believed in an occasional dose of castor oil or Epsom salts.
He was born in Boone County, Arkansas, 'clear out in the country', in 1876. His father and grandfather were Tennesseans, his father moving to Arkansas, where Dr. Burns was born.
Dr. Sam A. McKeel, Ada resident for many years, grew up in the same part of Tennessee and recalls a boyhood trip to the gristmill and tannery owned by Dr. Burn's grandfather.
In 1911 Dr.. Burns moved to the Maxwell area. Living was hard., he recalled to friends. He paid $15.00 down on a house which cost $200.00. He also recalled being flat broke.
A neighbor woman gave him some mustard seed and he waited impatiently until March for the weather to dry up enough so that he could plant the seed. "I never would eat greens in Arkansas." he said smilingly, "but I did here. It was eat greens or not eat." Someone gave him a fat hog on a bill and the family had milk and butter, bacon and greens.
An excellent story-teller, he had chuckles out of many experiences, some of them dealing with practically unbroken teams of horses he sometimes drove with the buggy he used in the pre-automobile days. But when cars became general he switched to them.
Later he moved to Stratford and then to Stonewall, and practiced there many years until his retirement.
In 1948 he and Dr. McKeel were honored by the Oklahoma Medical Association for 50 years of practice.
Surviving are his wife, Effie, a daughter, Mrs. Marquerite McGinnis, of Alvin, Texas, and step-daughter, Mr. Dena Vaye Nagel of Davenport, Iowa; a son, L.H. Burns of Omaha and a stepson, Frank M Lynn of Greenland, New Hampshire; Sisters, Mrs. Jennie Ising of California; Mrs. Zula Bryan and Mrs. Sallie Holmes of Harrison, Arkansas; Brothers, Dr. Charles Burns of Bokoshe, Mark of Lubbock, Texas and Frank of Harrison, Arkansas; 10 grandchildren.
Ada Evening News, July 7, 1957.