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JOHN JUDSON JENNELLE, D. D. S.
One of the leading members of the profession of dentistry in Southern Illinois, John Judson Jennelle has been engaged in practice in Cairo for a quarter of a century continuously. His first advent hither was in 1872, and after passing two years he went back to his old home, DuQuoin, Illinois, to remain a few years, and then returned to the commercial center at the mouth of the Ohio for permanent identity with its citizenship. He was born at Leroy, New York, August 3, 1850, from whence his parents migrated in 1865 to Pontiac, Michigan, his father, John J. Jennelle, following the trade of tinner and plumber, which he had learned at his native place, Quebec, Canada., where he had been born of French parents. He died in 1901, at the age of eighty-five years, and his widow, who had been Miss Melvira Barter, of Ogdensburg, New York, followed him to the grave in 1904. Of their family five children lived to grow to maturity.
Dr. John J. Jennelle acquired his education in the common schools and took up the study of dentistry when there were but two dental colleges in the United States. He learned his first lessons in the office of a practitioner, thereby equipping himself for real professional work, and in 1870, having properly experienced himself, he took up the practice in DuQuoin, and that place and Cairo constitute the scenes of his professional activity. Dr. Jennelle entered the profession before the State Association of Dentists was organized and he is a charter member of that body. When the movement for legislation for the protection of the profession was being urged, the Doctor adds his influence to it and was appointed by Governor Cullom a member of the first board of dental examiners of Illinois. He is a Republican in politics, and has become allied with the public services as one result of his unalloyed citizenship and Republican proclivities. He was elected county commissioner in 1904, again in 1907 and a third time in 1910, and during all these years he has been chairman of the board. He has given a few years of service to the city as an alderman and, while in DuQuoin, he served very ably as a member of the board of education.
On August 6, 1874, Dr. Jennelle was married in DuQuoin, Illinois, to Miss Lucy E. Dyer, a daughter of the late Dr. L. Dyer, prominent in Southern Illinois affairs for many years, a member of the Eighty-first Illinois Volunteer Infantry during the Civil war, a surgeon in Grant's army and actively identified with professional interests almost to his death in 1897. He was born in Vermont and married a Miss Purdy. Dr. and Mrs. Jennelle have had the following children: John, who is
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general manager of one of the largest lumber companies of the Pacific coast, maintains his home in Seattle, and is married to Miss Edith Halliday, of Cairo, and has two children, Edith and John Judson; Marian, the Doctor's second child, married R. E. Given, a business man of Fort Stockton, Texas; and June, the third child, became the wife of H. N. Calhoun, well known in business circles of Chicago. Dr. Jennelle has ever comported himself quietly and unobtrusively, and his life has been devoted to his family and his profession, and to a modest effort to serve his adopted community.