I have had a delightful time over the last year reading the posts and responses of folks on the "I was Raised in Suffolk" Facebook page at
https://www.facebook.com/groups/suffolkva/.
I am most amazed at how the same event or place or person or thing or even time is remembered by different people in different ways. I find this delightful, not disturbing. My niece and I were raised in the same house at the same time with the same people and ninety nine times out of a hundred, the way we remember and event is so different you wonderful if we were really raised together.
I have been posting to the Facebook page recently, photos and thoughts that I should have been posting here, so I thought I would begin again adding pictures and thoughts and ephemera here again.
Let's see....
Ah,
Broad Street, Suffolk. I have two associations with this street. I went to Mrs. "Monk" Churn's First Grade on this street, on the north west side of the street very close to the Bridge over to Constance Road.
The other associations is that my sister and her husband bought and lived in Dr. J. E. Rawls's home at 204 South Broad, two doors down from St. Mary's Roman Catholic Church. Huge house. Rawls built it so that he could keep an eye on the Lakeview Sanitarium where he was a doctor.
204 South Broad Street.
"Japheth Edward Rawls, M. D. Suffolk, the capital of Nansemond county, Virginia, with its railroads, peanut factories, saw mills, car shops, iron and brass works, knitting mills, etc., is a point demanding the ablest surgical skill to cope with the many mechanical appliances that constantly menace the persons of those employed in their operation. Since the year 1900 Dr. Rawls has been specializing in surgery at Suffolk, and during the fifteen years that have since elapsed, has ministered with firm touch and unfailing skill to many of these accidental cases, in addition to a large practice in general surgery and medicine. His reputation has spread far beyond local confines and his name is a familiar one in the medical world, through high official position in medical societies and frequent articles in medical journals.
Dr. Rawls is a grandson of Elisha and Margarett ("Peggy") (Jones) Rawls, of Holy Neck, Virginia, whose sons, Japheth and Luther, served in the Confederate army and both received wounds in battle. Luther Rawls, father of Dr. Rawls, was born at Holy Neck, Virginia, June 2, 1835. He spent his active life there, engaged in farming, and yet sojourns on the old farm, rounding out a long, eventful and useful life. He was a private and flag bearer in Company K, Forty-first Regiment Virginia Infantry, was severely wounded in the shoulder, but after recovery returned to the army, serving until the close of the war. He married, May 30, 1867, Mary Elizabeth Darden, born at Holy Neck, Virginia, November 16, 1839, daughter of William and Nancy (Langston) Darden. Her brother, Dempsey Darden, was also a Confederate soldier, serving in the Forty-first Regiment Virginia Infantry. Children of Luther and Mary E. Rawls: 1. Jesse P., born June 28, 1868; a cotton broker of Enterprise, Alabama; married Maggie Jones; five children. 2. Rosa M., born June 19, 1870; married E. S. Norfleet, farmer, of Holland, Virginia. 3. Willie Nancy Darden, born September 8, 1872; married J. Vivian Gatling, farmer, of Gates county, North Carolina; two children. 4. Japheth Edward, of whom further. 5. Mary Sue, born March 11, 1877; married Ernest H. Williams. of Smithfield, Virginia; an attorney; two children. 6. David Luther, born July 5, 1879 ; physician, associated with his brother, Japheth E. Rawls; a graduate of the University Medical College of Richmond, 1908.
Dr. Japheth Edward Rawls was born at Holy Neck, Nansemond County, Virginia, February 15, 1875. After preparatory courses in the public schools, he entered Elon College, at Elon, North Carolina, in the fall of 1889, and was graduated there from with the degree of A. B., with high honor in the class of 1896. He then took thorough courses in medicine and surgery in the best colleges in the country, receiving his degree of M. D. from Bellevue Hospital Medical College, New York City, in 1899. He began practice in Suffolk, Virginia, January 15, 1900 and has been in continuous practice there until the present date (1915). His post-graduate study included a special course at the Lying-in-Hospital of New York, the Polyclinic Medical College of New York City, the Post Graduate Medical School of Chicago, and the Illinois School of Electro Therapeutics. Thus thoroughly equipped, Dr. Rawls ministers to a large clientele, specializing in surgery, a branch of his profession in which he is most skillful.
Lakeview Sanitarium
Dr. Rawls was one of the founders of Lake View Hospital Sanitarium (Inc.) at Suffolk, 1905, and has been surgeon to that institution since its foundation.
He was city physician of Suffolk for six years, and is physician and surgeon to the Nansemond County Alms House. He is the assistant local surgeon of the Seaboard Railway at Suffolk. Notwithstanding the heavy demands of his private and public practice, Dr. Rawls devotes a share of his time to the general interests of his profession, holding membership in the Seaboard Air Line Railway Surgical, Virginia Medical, Southern Medical, American Medical, Seaboard Medical, and Virginia South Side Medical societies; has been president of the two latter named and interested in the work of all. His contributions to the literature of his profession are highly valuable articles that from time to time appear in the leading medical journals, attracting widespread attention. He is a member of the Christian church (O'Kelly) and serves on the music committee of the church. In political faith he is a Democrat, but the constant demands of his profession preclude all active political interest.
Dr. Rawls married, November 24, 1908, Emma Copeland Holland, born at Holy Neck, Virginia, September 3, 1882, daughter of Charles E. and Sue (Jones) Holland, and niece of Congressman E. E. Holland. Children, all born in Suffolk, Virginia: Ann Pretlow, born November 9, 1909; Mary Sue, born September 19, 1911; Japheth Edward Jr., born April 13, 1914."
---Encyclopedia of Virginia Biography
Lewis Historical Publishing, New York, 1915, Volume V, Pages 679 & 680
The Lakeview Sanitarium was later to become the Lakeview Hospital.
