Dr. James R. Sheppard
Born in 1871 in Bivins, Texas, Dr. James R. Sheppard was raised by his mother and stepfather who opposed the young man’s educational pursuits. Sheppard attended school only two months during the year at St. Helena school in Cass County and after turning 17, he moved to Texarkana to receive a more extensive education.
He taught for a while and then pursued his medical studies at Flint Medical College in New Orleans, graduating in 1904. Dr. Sheppard furthered his medical education and particularly his surgical knowledge at institutions in Chicago. Dr. Sheppard moved to Marshall in 1908 and later opened his first sanitarium, located outside of the city in 1911. A fire in 1920 destroyed that facility, a loss Dr. Sheppard estimated at $20,000.
He later built a new three-story hospital named The Sheppard Sanitarium, at 606 South Carter Street. There Dr. Sheppard treated patients, performed surgeries and trained nurses. He also taught surgical techniques to other physicians. He served as vice-president of the Texas chapter of the National Medical Association, the professional organization for African American physicians who were not allowed to join the allwhite American Medical Association. Dr. Sheppard had two younger half-brothers who followed him into the medical field. Perry N. Watts, born in 1877 in Lodi, Texas and William Watts, enrolled at Meharry Medical College in Nashville in 1911. He graduated in 1915 and obtained his Texas medical license that same year. Dr. Watts initially practiced in Houston and opened the Watts Sanitarium, a 40-bed facility, on Canal Street around 1920. There he treated and operated on African American patients as well as those of Mexican descent. Dr. Watts moved to California, practicing in Fresno before opening Oakland’s first hospital for African Americans in 1926. It closed the next year and by 1929, Dr, Watts had to returned to East Texas due to the illness and then death of his half-brother, Dr. Sheppard.
Dr. Watts assumed operation of the hospital and nursing school in Marshall, which was described in 1936 as having the “very finest of equipment, careful nursing and the most able professional services”.