Dr. Lloyd R. Boutwell

In stark contrast to Ulysses S. Tebbs, an African-American living in his overcrowded parent's home and working hard, manual labor repairing streets, is Dr. Lloyd R. Boutwell. Dr. Boutwell was a resident physician at Barnes Hospital and had recently married his college sweetheart, a young lady from a politically powerful St. Louis family, with whom he shared a beautiful home in the suburb of Kirkwood. While these two men were leading very different lives, the Great War would be a cruel equalizer and both would share the same fate.

Dr. Boutwell was born on October 26, 1889 in the small city of Hamilton, Missouri, northeast of Kansas City, which also happens to be the birthplace of James Cash Penney, the J.C. Penney founder, just 14 years earlier.

Boutwell's father was a farmer and he was the 3rd of 4 children. Undboudtedly, the keystone moment of Boutwell's life, the event that made him who he was, was the death of his mother. According to the 1900 census, his father was a widow, but his little sister was 2 years old. One can assume that his mother was lost in childbirth, but of course, it could have been any number of illnesses, diseases or just an accident. Either, way young Boutwell lost his mother before he was 11 years old. It isn't hard to imagine that this event would motivate him to become a doctor, a doctor who put service to others above all other considerations.

Boutwell was incredibly driven and apparently very sharp as well. He first got his bachelor's degree at Park College near Kansas City, then earned a master's degree at the University of Missouri and finally he graduated from Washington University Medical School, President of his class in 1916. After graduating, he began working at the General Hospital in Kansas City. While at the University of Missouri, he fell in love with Elizabeth Kiskadden, who was from St. Louis. They must have continued their courtship during medical school here in St. Louis and soon he moved back to St. Louis and they were married in August of 1917.

While he was a serious man, he also had an easygoing social side, he was a member of the Phi Beta Pi Fraternity and was known as "Bowser" to his friends.

Already his story was amazing, the son of a widowed farmer with 4 children to feed, going to medical school and marrying the daughter of St. Louis lawyer, but Dr. Boutwell was determined to make an extraordinary difference in the world as a doctor. The Rockefeller Foundation named Dr. Boutwell to be chief of staff of the Man Tung Cho Hospital in China. Dr. Boutwell and Elizabeth were planning on moving to China to serve others when America's entry into WWI changed their plans. The Army Medical Corp inducted him on Jan 6 of 1918 and in May of 1918 he sailed for France, his wife about to give birth to a son he would never see.