Dr. David Houston Hudgins Biography
Undated
Dr. David Houston Hudgins practiced medicine in Kaufman County for fifty-four years. He was born in Scottsboro, Alabama, on March 2, 1868, and came to Texas in 1880 with his parents, Anderson Pierce Hudgins and Eliza Skelton Hudgins. They settled in Grapevine where David grew to manhood. As a young man he taught school and studied medicine (alternately) until he received the degree of Doctor of Medicine in 1895 from a school in Memphis, Tennessee. This school was later absorbed into Tennessee State University, from which he received a certificate, marking fifty years of the practice of medicine, in 1945.
Crandall was the town in Kaufman County which Dr. Hudgins chose for his home in 1895. There he met Nannie Elizabeth Anthony (born September 15, 1876). They were married November 15, 1896. Two children were born to the couple. Inez Anthony (born September 11, 1897) and Jack William (born December 28, 1901). Inez Anthony Hudgins, at the time of this writing, lives in Dallas.
Dr. and Mrs. Hudgins moved to Forney in August of 1901. Dr. Eugene Fowler and Dr. Hudgins had a small hospital in Forney situated over the old Adams Drug Company building. Nannie Anthony Hudgins died there on July 9, 1909. At a later date the hospital was moved to larger quarters, taking over a building which had been at one time part of the Lewis Academy, on the north side of Forney.
In 1913, on April 2, Dr. Hudgins was married to Miss Mary Alice Pinson, a daughter of Mr. Richard P. Pinson.
In early 1917 the Forney Hospital, supported by the community, was opened in a three-story brick building on Trinity Avenue. Five doctors were on staff – Drs. Fowler, Hudgins, Shands, Sowell and Bailey. There was also an outstanding Nursing School headed by Mrs. Harriett Bobo. The hospital was closed some eighteen or twenty years later and Dr. Hudgins (the only remaining doctor) moved his office to a building on Bois d’Arc Street.
The work of teaching members of the community the health dangers from flies and mosquitoes was part of the duties of a doctor in the early part of the twentieth century and Dr. Hudgins was one of the pioneers in that task. He used steropticon slides to show how germs were carried, and to show the necessity for screening doors and windows in order to prevent malaria and typhoid fever. Dr. Hudgins’ interest in the life of his community led him into such various activities as President of the Board of Education, an elder in the Christian Church, President of the Lions’ Club, and Secretary of the Kaufman County Medical Society.
Dr. Hudgins’ grandchildren, Jack W. Hudgins, Jr., is president of Angelina County Junior College in Lufkin, Texas. Mary Nan Hudgins Mailman is on the Piano Facility of North Texas State University, Denton, Texas.
Dr. D.H. Hudgins died on June 25, 1955 at the age of 87. Mary Alice Pinson Hudgins died in December, 1969, aged 87. Jack W. Hudgins, Sr. died August 20, 1976, aged 74.
