Eugene F. Pellette

EUGENE F. PELLETTE, D. O., OPT. D., the leading representative of the School of Osteopathic Medicine at Liberal, is both professionally and in other ways one of the prominent men of the community. Doctor Pellette was trained for his professional work in the noted center of osteopathy, Kirksville, Missouri, where he took the full course and graduated in June, 1909. Since then he has been in practice at Liberal and his services have been in demand over a large part of Seward County and Southwestern Kansas. In 1915 he also took a course in optometry in the Needles Institute of Optometry, and after graduation passed the State Board of Examiners at Topeka, Kansas, and has since added this to his other professional duties.

Doctor Pellette is a native of Kansas and was born at Larned in Pawnee County February 14, 1884, representing several old families of the state. His paternal ancestors were New Englanders. His grandfather Pellette was a farmer by occupation and for a number of years was manager or superintendent of the County Farm near Hartford, Connecticut, where he spent his last years. Charles Pellette, father of Doctor Pellette, was the youngest of a large family, and one of his brothers came out to the West and established himself in the drug business at Kansas City, where he died. Charles Pellette was born in Hartford, Connecticut, about the beginning of the Civil war. He learned the carpenter trade as a young man and after coming to Kansas developed a business as a contractor and builder. He worked at his trade for a time in Kansas City, where he married, and he and his wife then went into the western part of the state and located at Larned, where he was commissioned to handle some of the principal building contracts. Among others he erected the large high school there. In 1896 he returned with his family to Hartford, Connecticut, and two years later died in that city. Charles Pellette marred Ida M. Barrett, a daughter of George and Elizabeth (Purdy) Barrett. George Barrett was a prominent citizen of Hutchinson, Kansas, going there from Middletown, New York. He proved up a claim in Reno County, was in the grocery business at Hutchinson, and was otherwise well known in that section of the state, where his last days were spent. The children of the Barrett family were: Nelson, who has the largest greenhouse business in Kansas, at Hutchinson; Mrs. Ida Pellette, of Hutchinson; Grace, wife of Henry Zinn, an optometrist and jeweler at Hutchinson; Mrs. Carrie Meyers, of Sylvia, Kansas; Mrs. Minnie Hosmer, of Hutchinson; Mrs. Alice Lawson, who died in Hutchinson; and Mrs. Florence Eastburn, of Hutchinson.

Charles Pellette and wife had just two sons, Eugene F. and Dudley B. Dr. Dudley B. is a graduate of veterinary medicine and surgery at the Kansas Agricultural College of Manhattan and is now in the United States Government service, located at Oxford, Alabama. He married Miss Earl Thompson.

Dr. Eugene F. Pellette was about twelve years old and had been in attendance at the public schools of Larned when his parents moved their family back to Hartford, Connecticut. After the death of his father there his widowed mother returned with her children to Hutchinson, Kansas, where she is still living and for a number of years has been deputy county clerk. Doctor Pellette finished his high school work at Hutchinson and attended the Salt Lake City Business College. He earned the money necessary to defray this expense by carrying a paper route of the Hutchinson News, and for seven years he covered this longest route in the city, and kept himself in school. He then put in a year and a half as stenographer and bookkeeper with the People's State Bank at Pratt, Kansas, and was stenographer and bookkeeper for about a year with the Sam Graybill Live Stock Commission Company of Hutchinson. It was after this experience in business that he took up his preparatory work for the osteopathic profession.

Doctor Pellette is one of the most prominent representatives of the School of Osteopathy in Kansas. He is a member and has served as vice president of the Southwestern Osteopathic Association, is a member of the Kansas State and the American Osteopathic Association, and a member of the Kansas and American Optometry Association. He has prepared articles for osteopathic periodicals and for addresses at meetings of the associations of which he is a member. His article on "Diet and Fasting in Relation to Osteopathy" was commented upon most favorably by Doctor Williams, editor of The Osteopath, who regards it as one of the strongest articles ever contributed to his paper. Doctor Pellette is one of the associate contributors to Clinical Osteopathy, a publication of recognized authority in osteopathic circles.

Doctor Pellette is clerk, banker and camp physician of the Woodmen of the World at Liberal, is a Blue Lodge and Chapter Mason, and he and his wife are prominent Methodists and do much to keep up Sabbath school work in their home town. They built one of the good homes of Liberal, on Sherman Street.

Doctor Pellette married at Pratt, Kansas, September 4, 1907, Miss Dorothy Green, a daughter of Joshua S. and Sarah (Dee) Green. Mrs. Pellette was the youngest of the family, and among her brothers are David, Lawrence, Edward and Fred; and she has a sister, Mrs. Minnie Fitzsimmons, of Cunningham, Kansas. Joshua Green, her father, was one of the very early settlers of Pratt County, where he proved up a claim and followed farming. He was a soldier of the Union army during the Civil war. Doctor and Mrs. Pellette have three children: Ralph, Paul and Ruth.

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