My Genealogy Hound

R. B. Gladden, M. D., is among the young men of Southwest Missouri whose professional careers render their names worthy of note. Dr. Gladden is a physician of Purdy, Mo., and is a native of the State, born in Johnson County in 1854. He is the son of Thomas and Sarah (Huff) Gladden. Thomas Gladden was barn in Tennessee in 1815. The latter’s father, William Gladden, was born in Georgia, and lived to the extreme old age of one hundred and nine years and nine months. He emigrated to Missouri when Thomas was but six months old, being the first white man to locate in Henry County. Thomas Gladden lived in Missouri for fifty-two years. He was married in Johnson County to Sarah (Huff) Dell, and to their union were born seven children, of whom the subject of this sketch is the second. Both Mr. and Mrs. Gladden had been married before, and each had two children by first marriage. Thomas Gladden emigrated to Arkansas when Dr. R. B. Gladden was fourteen years of age. There the latter was reared to manhood and educated, finishing his academical course at Cane Hill College. He afterward engaged in teaching school for a short time, but intending to make medicine his life profession he studied medicine in the meantime. Believing that by entering the drug business his opportunities of pushing his designs in securing a medical education would be greater, he, in partnership with Dr. W. G. Blake, became proprietor of a drug store in Benton County, Ark. Soon after Dr. Gladden sold his interest and erected a drug store at Springdale, Ark. After operating the latter for two and one-half years, he sold out and entered a medical college at Louisville, Ky. After finishing one course of lectures in that institution he returned to Polk County, Ark., and practiced his profession the following summer, after which he entered the medical department of the State University at Little Rock, from which institution he took the degree of M. D. in 1881. He then located at Solgohachia, Ark., and practiced medicine one year, after which he was located at Springdale one and one-half years, and came to Purdy in August, 1883. Here he has gained many friends, and has a large practice. Dr. Gladden is not only a well-qualified and successful physician, but is a man of broad and intelligent views outside of his profession. He married Mary W. Wilson, by whom he is the father of one living child, Earl. Politically, he is a Democrat, and religiously is a Missionary Baptist.