William H. Wallace, my father, first came to Kiowa in the summer of 1907
     during his vacation from the Kansas Veterinarian College to Kansas City.
     When he was graduated in May, 1908, he came back to establishe his practice.
     He kept a taeam of horses and a buggy at Dountain's Barn on the corner of
     6th and Campbell Street and also had a small corner room for an office. Doc
     (as he was to be known the rest of his life) lived at the Cottage Home Hotel,
     located west of Dountain's barn. In May, 1909, he went to Manhattan, Kansas,
     where he and Edith Kilian were married. They immediately came back to Kiowa
     and stayed at the hotel until they bought a house on 7th Street. It was the
     second house north of the Congregational Church. 
       Dad would go whenever he was called - day or night. No weather was too
     severe for him to answer a call, and he covered a large territory. Once an
     epidemic of sleeping sickness in horses kept him going day and night for
     weeks. He would stop at home only fo supplies, a change of clothing and to
     check on his calls. Several different people drove for him, and he would
     sleep between patients. Doc hated to lose any patient; and if he didn't know
     why that animal died, he would call or write other veterinarians or a college
     until he found out. He had a marvelous memory - he could quote from textbooks
     he used in college and could tell almost the exact page where that could be
     found.
       Doc was a great hunter and fisherman. Until my mother died in 1929, he
     always had a bird dog and went bird hunting every year. He never tired of
     fishing and enjoyed it most when his famiy or a good friend was with him.
       In addition to his practice, Doc was usually involved in some other project;
     he owned a baker for a couple of years, two different filling stations and
     several different farms or pastures, where he raised cattle or hogs. In 1920
     he bought a farm in Elk County and moved there, but came back to Kiowa in
     1923 where he stayed until the spring of 1948. Then he moved to Oregon to
     live with his older daughter, Margaret. In December he went to his younger
     daughter, Frankie, in Santa Barbara, California where he died from cancer
     in January, 1949.
       Doc Wallace was a rather wonderful man to his family and, altho many people
     didn't like him, no one who ever knew him will forget him.
                
     Source:Chosen Land - Barber County, Kansas, pg. 470 
     Submitted by: Margaret Wallace Poore