Looking Back: Horse & Buggy Doctor

from bmonthly November 2021

Giving Back: Grave Interest in Honoring the Dead

Horse & Buggy Doctor

Looking Back On the Many Works of Dr. Somerville

by Kay Little, Little History Adventures

Okey Sanford (O.S.) Somerville was born in West Virginia in 1871. After graduating from medical school, he practiced medicine there for 10 years. He married a local girl, Gretta Coe. They had two daughters, Rae and Virginia. While attending post graduate school, a friend told him he made quite a bit of money being a doctor in Texas, so Dr. Somerville took his family out west to make money. He eventually landed in Bartlesville, Indian Territory in 1905, where he lived until his death in 1968. When he came to this area, there were no automobiles, so he traveled in a horse and buggy.

Gretta died in 1928 and in 1929, O.S. married Flora Cramer, a cousin to his first wife and a daughter of Dr. Athey, a good friend of his.

The first 12 years in Bartlesville, Dr. Somerville was in general practice. Outlaws Henry Starr and Emmett Dalton were some of his patients. Another one of his patients was Frank Phillips. After Frank organized Phillips Petroleum Company, he hired Somerville as the medical director of the company, where he served for the next 30 years. As Somerville was retiring from Phillips in 1947, he said, “I feel like I am leaving home. I am going to miss the employees. Mr. Phillips and Mr. Adams have been grand to me and I have enjoyed my work with them very much.”

He did not rest much after retirement. During his years of doctoring and after retirement, he served on the school board, was county and city physician, county superintendent of health, and local surgeon for the railroad. He was the vice president of the Bartlesville State Bank and member of WWI Appeals Board. He was also a member of Rotary, American Medical Society, Masons, Elks, Sons of American Revolution, Philresters, and First Presbyterian Church. He was a member of the Indian Territory Pioneer Association, which I have talked about in past articles. In 1963, he was the oldest member, at age 92. Goodness, I got tired just writing all that!

I started researching Dr. Somerville several years after my husband told me the building where he works was at one time the residence of Dr Somerville. The Somervilles were the first to live at 412 E 5th Street. Dr Somerville lived there from 1940 until his death in 1968. In 1971, Rex Jones, CPA, bought the building and it has been a CPA office since. It is now Bryan, Little, Haley & Kent, CPAs.

When Dr Somerville died in 1968, survivors included his wife, two daughters, two grandchildren, six great grandchildren, and three great-great grandchildren. I found this quote about Dr O.S. Somerville, which described him well. “Whatsoever his hand finds to do, whether in his profession or in any other sphere, he does with his might and with a deep sense of conscientious obligation.”