Francis R.
Bennett, an old Rock Island Co.,
Illinois newspaperman, was born 27 November 1827 near Montreal, Canada. His parents were natives of Brattleboro,
Vermont and were married in 1822 and then moved to near Montreal. In 1826 the family returned to Brattleboro and
in 1832 they removed to Montrose, Pennsylvania and in May, 1837 to Davenport, Scott Co., Iowa. Frank was then aged
12 years and in 1841 he went to work for the Davenport Gazette.
In 1845 he worked here (Rock Island Co., Ill.) for the Upper Mississippian and in the fall of 1847 he bought the
Northwest Advertiser. In 1853 he sold the paper and went into farming with his father in the western part of Scott
Co., Iowa. In 1857 he moved to Princeton, Iowa and was in merchandizing; in 1859 he moved to Lyons, Iowa and was
in merchandizing. His wife died in June, 1861 aged 32 years and in 1862 he went to Colorado but returned in the
fall and was married in January 1863. The following spring he took his family to Denver and was in the lumber business
there. He returned to Lyons, Iowa in November, 1867 and in 1872 worked for the newspaper there. In 1874 he bought
the Delmar Journal and is now running it. (Rock Island Daily Argus, Monday 5 March 1877)
JOHN MCDANNELL,
M. D., of Nashua (Iowa), has had a busy and active professional career of forty years. It has been a career of
service, expressing not only the skill and knowledge borne of his training and experience, but also high ideals
and a conscientious devotion to the work which he chose early in life as the medium by which he might best make
his talents available to the world.
Doctor McDannell, whose home has been at Nashua (Iowa) since 1908, was born at Rock Island, Illinois, March 9,
1871, son of Decatur S. and Etola (Hughes) McDannell. His father was born in Ohio and his mother in Pennsylvania,
and they were married in Ohio. Decatur McDannell was an artist by profession, painted many notable canvasses,
and some of his favorite subjects were scenes in the Rocky Mountains. However, his great fame and his most notable
artistic achievement was painting that magnificent panorama of the battle Gettysburg, which for years was housed
as a feature in a building at Chicago and attracted thousands and hundreds of thousands of visitors. Decatur McDannell
died at Moline, Illinois, in 1890.
John McDannell derived from his father a vivid sense of beauty and keen powers of observation. His early education
was in the public schools of Illinois. Later he studied at the University of Wisconsin, and while in that state
lived with Dr. W. P. Hartford, of Beetown. Doctor Hartford became his preceptor in medicine, but later, in 1888,
he entered the Kentucky School of Medicine at Louisville, at that time rated as one of the leading schools in
the country. Doctor McDannell distinguished himself by his student record and won the gold medal for proficiency
in anatomy and was appointed demonstrator in anatomy. He was graduated in 1891 and began his practice at Glen
Haven, Wisconsin. From there he went to Arlington, Iowa, and eight years later in 1908, located at Nashua. Doctor
McDannell took post-graduate work in Chicago in 1907-08, spent six months in the New York Polyclinic and has
been a constant student and has attended many clinics and medical conventions.
He is a member and past president of the Chickasaw County Medical Society and in 1927 had the honor of being president
of the Austin Flint-Cedar Valley Medical Society. Before that society, in July, 1926, he read a paper entitled
"The General Practitioner's Service to Medicine," which was published in the journal of the Iowa State
Medical Society in 1927. A great deal has been said and written concerning the general practitioner, but perhaps
nothing better as a concise review of all the essentials of the subject than that contained in Doctor McDannell's
article. He has himself been a general practitioner, and his friends in the profession say that during his work
of forty years he has realized many of the splendid tributes that have been paid to a family physician of both
the older and modern times. Doctor McDannell is also a member of the Iowa State and American Medical Associations.
He is local surgeon at Nashua for the Illinois Central Railway.
He married, September 18, 1892, Lottie E. Ishmael, of Cassville, Wisconsin. They have one daughter, Lucile. Lucile
has many of her father's intellectual characteristics, and all through her school work was distinguished by her
intellectual abilities. She had the highest average grade through four years in high school among all the high
school students of Iowa, and this record was awarded a four year scholarship at Grinnell College, of which she
is an honor graduate. Her record at Grinnell brought her the award of a year's scholarship at the University of
Lyons, France. She is now an instructor of French at Northwestern University in Chicago, and is the wife of Z.
S. Fink, also a member of the faculty of Northwestern. Doctor McDannell is a past master Mason and is affiliated
with the Knights Templar Commandery at Charles City and Elkahir Temple of the Mystic Shrine at Cedar Rapids.
[A Narrative History of The People of Iowa, 1931]
