Los
Angeles County
Biographies
EDWIN
HERBERT RUSSELL
RUSSELL, EDWIN HERBERT, Physician and Surgeon, Los Angeles, California, was born in Lowell, Massachusetts, March 16, 1857, the son of Leonard Murray Russell and Nancy Perry (Hopkins) Russell. He has been twice married, the issue of the first marriage being Mary Gertrude Russell, Nita L. (Wife of Allen H. Johnson) and Leonard Walter Russell. On July 2, 1902 he married Marie Conception Carmelita Mercedes Ana de Toro, daughter of Juan de Toro and Maria Olvera de Toro, and granddaughter of the Hon. Augustin Olvera, Secretary of the last Mexican Legislature in California, Peace Commissioner with Fremont in 1847 and the first County Judge of Los Angeles elected when the county was created in 1853. One daughter has been born to them, Marie Marguerite Russell, born in 1903.
The Doctor is descended from an old New England family, the pioneers of which, three brothers from Sutherlandshire, Scotland, having settled in Lunenburg, Massachusetts, in 1703. One ancestor and four of his sons were members of the famous Lunenburg Company and marched all day, June 17, 1775, arriving at the battle of Bunker’s Hill in time to cover the retreat of the American troops over Boston Neck. On his mother’s side, the Doctor is of Colonial stock, her progenitors being among the first of the Penobscot Bay settlers when Maine was only a province of Massachusetts.
Dr. Russell received his preliminary education in the public schools of his native city, graduating from the Lowell High School in 1873. He took up the study of medicine a short time after this and was graduated with the degree of Doctor of Medicine in 1880 from Boston University. Prior to graduating from this latter institution the Doctor, in 1877, moved to California and began the practice of medicine, succeeding the late Dr. E. Howe, of Florence, California, who was one of the earlier pioneer physicians of Southern California. It was in 1879 that Dr. Russell returned to Massachusetts and completed his studies at Boston University.
Following his graduation, Dr. Russell served for a time as Assistant Physician to the Dio Lewis Sanitarium, at Arlington Heights, Massachusetts. He returned to California and resumed his practice at Florence, remaining there until 1884. He then went to San Francisco and served for some months as Resident Physician of the San Francisco Homeopathic Hospital, but gave this up to establish private practice at Visalia, California.
Dr. Russell was in practice at Visalia about four years and during that time was unusually successful, but in 1888 he transferred his offices to Santa Monica, California, where he was engaged until 1890. In the latter year he removed to Redondo, becoming physician for the Redondo Railway and Beach Company. At the close of the year, he decided to seek a larger field, so resigned his position and moved to Los Angeles, where he has been in practice continually since.
After conducting a general practice for several years, Dr. Russell in 1898 made a specialty of mental and nervous diseases and is today regarded as one of the leading experts in that branch of medical practice. In addition to handling a great number of interesting cases, the Doctor has written various articles on these subjects for newspapers and medical journals, many of his analyses being regarded as authoritative on the subjects treated.
Dr. Russell has been an unusually busy member of the medical profession and has had small opportunity for outside interests, but, nevertheless, is an enthusiastic worker for upbuilding of the section in which he has made his home, aiding, whenever possible, any movement having for its object the betterment of local conditions. Being a man of progressive ideas, he has at all times stood for advancement in his own profession and in public policy.
The Doctor has, with Gustave W. Haas, been identified with the Institute of Mechanical Orthopedics, serving as Physician-in-Charge since the inception of the Haas Method. This new departure in the field of orthopedics has met with unusual success.
With the exception of a brief term as a Justice of the Peace, he has held no political office and the attractions of home and a choice social circle have more than been an offset for the lack of club and social organization memberships. Like others of the pioneer physicians of Los Angeles he has been more conspicuous in the hearts and homes of his patrons, than in the public eye.
Transcribed 3-18-11
Marilyn R. Pankey.
Source:
Press Reference Library, Western Edition Notables of the West, Vol. I, Page 613, International News Service, New York, Chicago, San
Francisco, Los Angeles, Boston, Atlanta.
1913.
©
2011 Marilyn R. Pankey.
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