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Washington Evening Journal
111 North Marion Avenue
Washington, IA 52353
319-653-2191
A New London Story: The Three Drs. Mehler
Southeast Iowa Union offers audio versions of articles using Instaread. Some words may be mispronounced.
New London has been blessed with good doctors throughout most of its history. There have been several. I, of course, only remember Dr. Readinger and Dr. Vaughan. They were my doctors until they retired. They were both excellent. But today is not about them. We’ll save them for another day. Today it is the three Drs. Mehler. To make it even more interesting, they were all named Frank.
In 1871, Frank Mehler came to New London. He was born in Germany in 1845 and arrived on these shores with his parents in 1848. He graduated from the Rush Medical College in Chicago in 1863 at only seventeen. He was an assistant surgeon at Camp Douglas.
Camp Douglas was located in Chicago. The Civil War loomed on the horizon, and the first Union troops had arrived in 1861 for training. Camp Douglas was also one of the few camps that took African-American volunteers. Dr. Mehler spent the rest of the war as a surgeon in Illinois, Kentucky, and Tennessee.
In 1865, he returned to Rush College to teach anatomy. He came to New London in 1871, after losing all his possessions in the “famous” Chicago fire. How he ended up in New London seems to be lost in time. He married a Danville girl, Laura Bristor. They had two children, Frank Mehler II born in 1874 and Grace Mehler Barringer born in 1883.
The first Dr. Mehler was involved in a New London-sponsored project that I always wondered if it was truly a thing. It seems that it was. Dr. Mehler was one of the sponsors of the building of a sidewalk from N. Pine St. to Burge Cemetery. This civic project made it possible for anyone to get to Burge safely and easily. People could tend the graves of their loved ones or just have a pleasant stroll to the cemetery grounds. My mom insisted that she had had picnics at Burge after walking there on a sidewalk. I guess she wasn’t kidding.
Dr. Mehler #1 was also one of the earliest owners of a car. In 1906, he might pull up to a house call location in a car instead a horse and buggy.
Dr. Mehler died in 1927 from complications from diabetes. He had practiced medicine for 64 years with 56 of them in New London. At the time of his death, he was the oldest practicing physician in Iowa.
The second Dr. Frank Mehler was born May 23, 1874 in New London. He attended the Medical College of Physicians and Surgeons at Keokuk and graduated in 1900. He married Ara Nugen in 1899. They had one son, you guessed it, Frank Mehler III.
The first and second Drs. Mehler practiced medicine together until the outbreak of WWI. The younger Dr. Mehler served 16 months with the U.S. Medical Corps. in France. The army service compromised his health and he died Sept. 24,1922 at age 48.
The third Dr. Mehler was born Aug. 3, 1905 in New London. He graduated from New London High School, Class of 1923. He also graduated from Iowa Wesleyan College and the State University of Iowa School of Medicine. He then went to Rochester, NY for his internship.
While still in medical school, he purchased the J. E. Peterson’s almost new large brick home on N. Pine St. You know, the one that reportedly had a ballroom on the third floor. In 1931, he opened his practice in the N. Pine St. house. My mother’s memory proved correct again. As a patient of his, she would know that there was a side door off the driveway that was used when a person came for an office call.
Dr. Mehler III married nurse Margaret Marten in 1931, and they had two sons, Robert and Frank. Robert became the doctor in Colorado. I could find no information on the 4th Frank.
Dr. Mehler III’s death on Aug. 23, 1949, was caused by a cerebral hemorrhage suffered while he was at his summer home at Lowell. Called Sweet Home, he had purchased the three-story home near the Skunk River in 1947. At his death, he was 44 years old.
With his death, the Mehlers’ seventy-eight years of “doctoring” New Londoners came to an end.
Today the three Doctor Mehlers rest peacefully at Burge Cemetery. Their gravestones appear very modest, yet these three men were an important part of New London for almost a century. Just think of all the New London stories that used to start with, “Well Dr. Mehler said…”
Sources: New London Centennial Book 1875-1975 and Find a Grave website.
