Dr. Charles J. Lavery, born on February 5, 1867, in Clinton, New York, was a prominent physician in Fort Pierre, South Dakota. He began his medical studies in 1885 and pursued advanced training in Ohio, Chicago, Toronto, and Montreal. Dr. Lavery served as county coroner, county physician, and was the first superintendent of Stanley County’s Board of Health. He was also involved in various professional and fraternal organizations. Dr. Lavery married Matilda I. Widmeyer in 1895, who passed away in 1896, and later married Margaret Ethel Whitney in 1897, with whom he had one child.
Charles J. Lavery, M.D.— Fort Pierre, Stanley County, has an able and popular representative of the medical profession in the person of Dr. Lavery, who is a native of the old Empire State of the Union. He was born in the town of Clinton, Clinton County, New York, on the 5th of February, 1867, and is a son of John and Jane (Coulter) Lavery, both of whom were born in the fair Emerald Isle, the former in County Armagh and the latter in County Mayo. William Lavery, the paternal grandfather of the Doctor, was likewise born in County Armagh, Ireland, whence he emigrated with his family to America in 1831, locating in Ontario, Canada, near Huntington, and not far distant from the line of New York state. He there engaged in farming and there passed the remainder of his long and useful life, while the old homestead is still in the possession of his descendants. The father of the subject remained at the parental home until he had attained the age of seventeen years, when he removed to Chateaugay, Franklin County, New York, where he was residing at the time of the outbreak of the war of the Rebellion, when he showed his intrinsic loyalty by promptly tendering his services in defense of the Union. In 1861 he enlisted, in response to the President’s first call, as a private in the Ninety-sixth New York Volunteer Infantry, with which he served until the close of his three months’ term. He then re-enlisted in the same regiment and was made first lieutenant of Company A. He participated in many of the most notable engagements of the great conflict, including the battles of the Wilderness, Seven Oaks, Lookout Mountain, Shenandoah, and many others, while he continued in active service until practically the close of the war, having received his honorable discharge on the 25th of January, 1865. He then returned to New York and took up his residence on the farm which he had purchased, in Clinton County, and there he continued to make his home, honored by all who knew him, until his death, which occurred on the 29th of July, 1896, while his devoted wife passed away on the 14th of November, 1902. They became the parents of three children, Charles J., William Burns, and Ellen M., the subject of this sketch being the eldest, the other two dying in childhood: William Burns at the age of six years and Ellen M. when but eight months old.
Dr. Lavery was reared to the sturdy discipline of the homestead farm and received his rudimentary education in the district schools of the locality, after which he completed a course of study in the high school at Churubusco, New York. He began the study of medicine in 1885 with Dr. M. S. Carpenter, of Ellenburg Center, New York. In 1886 he was matriculated in Starling Medical College, in Columbus, Ohio, where he continued the study of medicine and surgery under the most favorable conditions for the ensuing two years, when his health became so impaired as to demand his withdrawal from school, and he then passed about two years on the home farm, fully recuperating his energies. He then came to the west, taking up his residence in South Dakota in 1890, on the 18th of February of which year he passed the required examination entitling him to the degree of Doctor of Medicine and to practice his profession in the state. He had in the meanwhile continued his technical studies and advanced himself to high proficiency in his chosen profession. From 1890 until 1893 the Doctor devoted his attention to practice at Fort Pierre, this state, and then took a post-graduate course of six months’ duration in the College of Physicians and Surgeons in Chicago. Holding nothing less than the most perfect professional knowledge as satisfactory in a personal way, he then took a post-graduate course in hospitals in the city of Toronto, Canada, and later a special hospital and clinical course in hospitals under professional control of the celebrated McGill University, in the city of Montreal. The Doctor then made a visit to his old home, where he remained a brief interval, at the expiration of which, in April 1895, he returned to Fort Pierre and resumed the active practice of his profession, in which he has met with most gratifying success. His services have been self-abnegating and often arduous, as he has been frequently called to minister to those forty, fifty and even one hundred miles distant from his home, while in nearly all such cases he has had to make the journey on horseback or with team and vehicle, and often over country little traveled. His devotion to his profession and to the cause of suffering humanity has been shown in the labors which he has thus performed, while he has been specially successful in his surgical practice, in which he has attained a high reputation and a business excelled by that of but few physicians in the state, if indeed any. He has the best standard and periodical literature pertaining to his profession and keeps in close touch with the advances made, while once or twice each year he visits certain of the leading metropolitan hospitals and medical colleges for the purpose of further study and investigation, while in his office will be found all the newest appliances and most recent instruments for the treatment of disease, both medical and surgical. The Doctor served for a number of terms as County coroner, and was also County physician for several years, while he also had the distinction of being the first superintendent of the first board of health of Stanley County, and has ever since been an active and valued member of the board. In 1900 he was elected a member of the board of trustees of the South Dakota State Medical Society, at the annual meeting, in Aberdeen, and at the annual meeting of 1903, at Mitchell, he was selected, with Dr. Rock, of Aberdeen, to represent the state association at the meeting of the American Medical Association at Atlantic City, New Jersey, in May, 1904, and in August, 1903, he was elected secretary at the organization of the Fourth District Medical Society and was re-elected in December, 1903. Dr. Lavery was the first president of the Republican League of Stanley County, which was organized in 1890, and served until 1894, taking a most active part in the party work in the County. In 1896 he showed the courage of his convictions by transferring his allegiance to the Democratic Party and supporting Bryan for the presidency, and he has since been a prominent advocate of the principles of this party. He has attained the thirty-second degree in the Scottish Rite Masonry, being identified with Oriental Consistory, No. 2, at Yankton, South Dakota, and at the time of this writing he is worshipful master of Hiram Lodge No. 123, Ancient Free and Accepted Masons, in his home town, and is a member of the Royal Arch chapter and Eastern Star in Pierre. He is also identified with the Sons of Veterans, the Knights of Pythias, and the Ancient Order of United Workmen. He is a thoroughly loyal citizen of his adopted state and deeply interested in all that conserves its prosperity and advancement.
On the 20th of February, 1895, Dr. Lavery was united in marriage to Miss Matilda I. Widmeyer, of Clearwater, Manitoba, she having been a daughter of Charles Widmeyer, an extensive and prominent farmer of that section of the Canadian northwest. Mrs. Lavery entered into eternal rest on the 6th of October, 1896, leaving one child, Ruble St. Elmo, who was born March 22, 1896. On the 14th of October, 1897, the Doctor wedded Miss Margaret Ethel Whitney, of Emmettsburg, Iowa. She is a daughter of Dr. Joshua J. Whitney, who was surgeon of the Eighteenth Wisconsin Volunteer Infantry during the war of the Rebellion, and who later became one of the pioneers of Fort Pierre, South Dakota, where he opened what was probably the first drug store in the town and being one of the most influential citizens of this locality up to the time of his death, on the 8th of October, 1890, at the age of sixty years. Dr. and Mrs. Lavery have one child, a little girl, born January 14, 1904. They are both communicants of the Protestant Episcopal Church, both having been brought up in that belief. The Doctor is warden of the church in Fort Pierre and always has been an active church worker.
Source: Robinson, Doane, History of South Dakota: together with mention of Citizens of South Dakota, [Logansport? IN] : B. F. Bowen, 1904.