My Genealogy Hound

ZOPHAR CASE, M. D., is a leading physician and surgeon of Warrensburg, Johnson County, and though he has been located in this place but five years, numbers many of her best citizens among his clients, and finds his time fully employed in meeting the needs of his numerous patrons. He has been engaged in the practice of his profession for nearly two decades, his field of labor being Johnson County, with the exception of three years spent in St. Louis. He aims to keep thoroughly abreast of the times in all the latest discoveries relating to the science of medicine, and to that end took a post-graduate course a few years ago in the New York Post-Graduate College.

The parents of Dr. Case were Zophar and Mary E. (Halstead) Case. The former was a native of Warren, Trumbull County, Ohio, born in 1805, and in early life was a civil engineer. He studied for that branch of professional life in Cleveland, Ohio, under his brother Leonard, who died in 1868, and in 1832 helped to make the Government surveys in southern Illinois. In middle age he became a lawyer, practicing at Carlyle, and was associated with Judge Omalvaney. Then for a few years he was engaged in the mercantile business, and after retiring made his home in Cleveland, where he lived for four years prior to his death, which occurred in 1884. From his early years he was identified with the growth and development of Illinois, and held the offices of County and Circuit Clerks of Clinton County for several terms, besides serving as County Surveyor. His wife, Mary, was born near Frankfort, Ky., in 1818, and died in Cleveland in 1881. One of her ancestors, Richard Nichols, was at one time Provincial Governor of New York, and her great-great-grandmother, Aneka Jans, leased the ground on which stands the famous Trinity Church of New York. Her progenitors crossed over to England with the Prince of Orange, and subsequently helped to uphold him as King William III. A son of Dr. Case’s uncle Leonard, previously mentioned, William Case, was President of the Lake Shore Railroad and Mayor of Cleveland, and another son, Leonard, Jr., established the School of Applied Science, and endowed it in 1880.

The birth of Dr. Zophar Case occurred January 22, 1847, in Carlyle, Ill., and his school days were spent in that locality. When he was in his eighteenth year he obtained employment at the railroad station, and two years afterwards began clerking in stores in his birthplace. At the age of twenty-six years he took up the study of medicine under Dr. J. T. Gordon, of Carlyle, and after completing a three-years course in a little over two years, graduated from the St. Louis Medical College, of St. Louis, Mo., in the Class of ‘75. The following year he began practicing in Johnson County, and continued uninterruptedly here until 1882, when he went to St. Louis. He practiced in that city for three years, and while living there was married, June 11, 1884, to Laura Ellen Gallaher, a native of Johnson County. In 1885 he returned to Johnson County, and a few months afterwards his wife died.

In 1890 Dr. Case went to New York City, where he took a post-graduate course, and when he returned to the West he decided to locate in Warrensburg. May 31, 1894, his marriage with Anna Blanche Beegle, of this city, was celebrated. She was born at Pleasant Hill, Mo., and is a lady of superior education, who with her husband is received in the best social circles of this place. They are members of the Methodist Episcopal Church, the Doctor having become identified with the denomination in 1868. In politics he follows his father’s example, and votes the straight Democratic ticket, as he has always done since casting his first ballot for Seymour in 1868.