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Below is a family biography included in Biographical and Historical Memoirs of Pulaski County, Arkansas published by Goodspeed Publishing Company in 1889.  These biographies are valuable for genealogy research in discovering missing ancestors or filling in the details of a family tree. Family biographies often include far more information than can be found in a census record or obituary.  Details will vary with each biography but will often include the date and place of birth, parent names including mothers' maiden name, name of wife including maiden name, her parents' names, name of children (including spouses if married), former places of residence, occupation details, military service, church and social organization affiliations, and more.  There are often ancestry details included that cannot be found in any other type of genealogical record.

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P. O. Hooper, M. D. The Hooper family, or rather that branch to which the subject of this sketch belongs, were early settlers of Arkansas, Alanson Hooper being the first one of the family to locate here. He was born in the “Bay State,” in 1787, and after reaching manhood removed to Louisiana, where he espoused Miss Magdaline Perry, a native of that State; and a few years following the celebration of their nuptials, they removed to Arkansas, where the mother died in 1877, at the age of seventy-seven years. The father died in 1850, aged sixty-three. Dr. Hooper, their son, was born in the State in which he now resides, in 1833, and received his literary education in Little Rock and in Nashville, Tenn. After attaining a suitable age, and being imbued with a desire to study medicine, he entered the Jefferson Medical College of Philadelphia, Penn., from which he graduated in 1856. Upon returning home, he practiced his profession until the opening of the Civil War, then joined the Confederate army, and was appointed president of a board of examining surgeons, and in this capacity served faithfully all through the war, being at the time of the cessation of hostilities in the State of Louisiana. After peace was declared, he returned to his home in Little Rock, where he found ample scope for the development of his talents, and soon became one of the acknowledged leaders of his profession, not only in his own, but also in adjoining States. Great credit is due to him for the establishment of the State Insane Asylum, and to him, with a few others, almost wholly belongs the credit of its establishment. He was president of the board of trustees of the asylum until 1883, when he accepted the superintendency in order to see that all his plans were carried out relative to the building, grounds and methods of treating the inmates. After several years of arduous labor, he can now look upon the result of his many weary days of toil with pardonable pride and pleasure, for the institution is a model of its kind and is conducted in an admirable manner. Dr. Hooper is one of the physicians who helped to organize the Medical Department of the Arkansas Industrial University, and was dean of the faculty for some time, and still often gives lectures in the college on mental and nervous diseases. He was president of the American Medical Association that met at St. Paul, Minn., in 1883, and now belongs to the State Medical Society and the New York Medico-Legal Society. He has shown his approval of secret societies by joining the Masons and the I. O. O. F. He was married in the State of Arkansas, in 1859, to Miss Georgie Carroll, a native of Alabama, and by her has three sons and two daughters: Katie (wife of Samuel J. Churchhill), Bernie, Perry, Philo and George.

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This family biography is one of 156 biographies included in Biographical and Historical Memoirs of Pulaski County, Arkansas published in 1889.  For the complete description, click here: Pulaski County, Arkansas History, Genealogy, and Maps

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