Kern County
Biographies
R. B. REES, M. D.
R. B. REES,
M. D. - Whatever of success has come to Dr. Rees is the result of his own
efforts and constant study. It was not possible for his parents, John W. and
Rachel (John) Rees, to give him any educational advantages, for after they
crossed the ocean from their native Wales they had to labor incessantly to
secure the necessities of existence. The father, who was a contracting painter
in his younger years, now makes his home in Columbus, Ohio, where the mother
died in 1910 at the age of seventy-five years. Their son, R. B., was born in
Newark, Ohio, and in boyhood attended school at Columbus, that state , whence he went east to Boston in order to earn a
livelihood in a humble position. During leisure hours he studied in the Boston
evening school, where he pursued a special scientific course until his
graduation. Meanwhile all of his studies had been directed with the ultimate
aim of professional work, an ambition of which he never lost sight through all
the financial hardships of youth. During 1897-1898 he attended the University
of Vermont and in the fall of 1898 he matriculated in the University of
Maryland, at Baltimore, from which he was graduated in 1900. The degree of M.
D. was conferred upon him when he graduated from the medical college of Harvard
University at Cambridge, Mass., in 1901, after which he practiced his
profession for three years in Boston, later serving for two years as resident
surgeon in Carney hospital, South Boston. It was there that his splendid talent
for surgery first attracted attention. In critical operations he proved
unusually successful and his time was almost wholly given to surgical duties.
Since leaving the east he has retained an honorary membership in the
Massachusetts State Medical Association.
Having
successfully passed an examination before the state medical board of California
in December of 1906, during March of 1907 Dr. Rees selected Bakersfield as the
center of future professional work and established an office in this city. Here
too he has his home, which is presided over graciously by Mrs. Rees, formerly
Miss Edna Clark Wetterman, and is brightened by the
presence of only child, John Wetterman. In Bakersfield, as in the east, Dr. Rees
makes a specialty of surgery and practices at Mercy hospital, in addition to
having built up a large private practice.
From two to four o’clock he has office hours in his suite above the Hughes drug
store, while during the balance of his time he gives his attention to home and
hospital professional duties. Devotion to his specialty is indicated by
membership in the Surgical Club of Rochester, Minnesota. In addition he is
identified with the Kern County and California State Medical Associations, the
San Joaquin Valley Medical Society and the American Medical Association, and
through these organizations as well as through the reading of current medical
literature he keeps in touch with modern developments in the science of therapeutics.
Such has been his devotion to the practice of medicine and surgery that he has
had no leisure for participation in political affairs or civic enterprises, nor
has he been active in any fraternities aside from the Elks and the Woodmen of
the World.
Transcribed
by Sally Kaleta.
Source:
"History of Kern County with Biographical Sketches," Wallace M.
Morgan, Historic Record Company, Los Angeles, California, 1914, Page 525.
© 2014 Sally Kaleta.
GOLDEN NUGGET'S KERN COUNTY
BIOGRAPHIES
"History of Kern County with Biographical
Sketches," Wallace M. Morgan, Historic Record Company, Los Angeles,
California, 1914,.