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ROBERT
A. KERR, M. D. A graduate of Rush
Medical College, Dr. Robert A. Kerr entered upon the practice
of his profession in Peoria county in 1882, and in the intervening
years to the present time his skill and ability have been constantly
augmented through his extended experience and wide reading.
His investigation into the most advanced methods of practice has
given him knowledge and power that are evidenced in the excellent
results which have attended his labors. In addition to a large
private practice he is serving as president on the staff of Proctor
Hospital. He was born in St. Clairsville, Clermont county,
Ohio, February 1, 1857, and is a son of Hugh and Angeline
(Milligan) Kerr, who were farming people and Is a son of Hugh
and Angeline (Milligan) Kerr, who were farming people and
removed from Ohio to Wisconsin during the infancy of their son
Robert. The boy was reared upon a farm in Vernon county,
Wisconsin, and attended the country schools, dividing his time
between the acquirement of his education and the work of the fields,
as he assisted his father in the cultivation and development of the
farm. His early educational opportunities were supplemented by
a course of study in the academy at Elroy, Wisconsin, from which he
was graduated, and he then continued his course in the high school
at Richland Center, Wisconsin. He entered upon the profession
of teaching as principal of the high school at Richland Center,
where he remained for two years but thinking to find a more
profitable field of labor as a practitioner of medicine he began
reading in the office and under the direction of Dr. C. E. Booth,
at Elcho, Wisconsin. He next entered Rush Medical College, at
Chicago, where he pursued a three years' course and was graduated in
the spring of 1881. He then opened an office in Glencoe,
Minnesota, where he remained for about a year. When he came to
Peoria county, Illinois, he
settled first at Dunlap, where he remained from 1882 until 1895,
when he sought the broader field of labor offered in the city and
came to Peoria. He opened
an office at 516 Main street* and at the present time has a well
appointed suite in the Jefferson building. He has done
post-graduate work, studying through the winter of 1895-6 in
Chicago, and at different times he has further pursued his studies
along special lines. He belongs to the Peoria City Medical
Society, the Illinois State Medical Society, the American Medical
Association and the American Society of Railroad Surgeons.
Since 1896 he has been division surgeon for the Rock Island Railroad
and he is one of the board of censors of the Peoria Medical Society.
At one time he served as president of the Peoria City Medical
Society, and was formerly vice president of the Illinois State
Medical Society. He has also served on the staff of Proctor
Hospital as its president and he has served as president of the
Military Tract Medical Society. His work and his professional
connections have been of an important character and indicate his
high standing in the medical fraternity.
Dr. Kerr was
united in marriage to Miss Arabella Grant, of
Millbrook township, a daughter of Kenneth Grant, an
early settler of this county. They have one child, Edna
Lois.
Dr. Kerr is a member of the Independent
Order of Odd Fellows and in the Masonic fraternity has attained high
rank, being a thirty-second degree Mason of the consistory. He
is in hearty sympathy with the purposes and principles of the craft
and exemplifies in his life its beneficent teachings. He holds
to high standards in his profession and to the work he has always
devoted the greater part of his time and energies, performing his
professional duties with a sense of conscientious obligation.
Those who meet him professionally or socially entertain for him warm
regard in recognition of his sterling personal worth.
 Source:
Peoria City and County, Illinois - The S. J. Clarke Publ. Co. - 1912
- Pages 839
*Across the alley from the old Post Office (Federal Building).
Hoops Pub & Pizza is now in the street level part of the building. |
