Edmund Madison Chitwood, M.D.

EDMUND MADISON CHITWOOD, M. D. From Colonial days until the present the family name, of Chitwood has been associated with agricultural development in Virginia, and while still largely agricultural, has many representatives in professional and public life. A prominent member of this sturdy old family of English origin is Dr. Edmund Madison Chitwood, physician and surgeon at Wytheville, Virginia, of which city he is health officer.

Doctor Chitwood was born on leis father’s firm near Hillsville, Carroll County, Virginia, April 5, 1889, a son of Randolph acid Ellen (Smith) Chitwood, and a grandson of Edwin and Maria (Ogle) Chitwood. Doctor Chitwood’s grandfather was horn in Franklin County, Virginia, and when sixteen, years of age came to Carroll County, where he subsequently acquired a large estate, which still belongs to a member of the Chitwood family. He spent the rest of his life here engaged in agricultural pursuits, and died on his farm near Hillsville in 1888.

Randolph Chitwood, father of Doctor Chitwood, was born in Carroll County, Virginia, iii 1851 acid died on the farm he had inherited from his father in October, 1913. He practically spent his entire life here and was an extensive farmer and cattle raiser. In politics he was a democrat, but never a seeker for public office, and during the greater part of his life was a faithful member of the Christian Baptist Church. he married Ellen Smith, who was born in Carroll County in 1860, and still resides on the home farm. They became the parents of six children: Giles Hambrick, who is a farmer near Hillsville; Dora, who is the wife of George Blankenship, a farmer and merchant near Hillsvitle; Edmund Madison; Roscoe Chapman, who owns and operates the home farm, and is a veteran of the World war; Amanda, who is the’ wife of Harrison White, a farmer residing ten miles cast of Wytheville; and John Randolph, who is a medical student in his third year in the Medical College of Virginia in Richmond.

Edmund Madison Chitwood had both private and public, school advantages in Carroll County, and was graduated in the class of 1907 from the Woodlawn high School, then entered the Baltimore Medical College, from which he was graduated with his degree in 1912, and in the same year passed the Virginia State Board of Medical Examiners. hers. For six months after leaving college he served as interne in the Maryland General Hospital at Baltimore, and then spent four months at Sparrows Point, Maryland, as surgeon for the Maryland Steel Works. From that field of work Doctor Chitwood then went to Austinville, Wythe County, Virginia, as surgeon for the New Jersey Zinc Company, where he continued for eight years and then, in. 1922, came to Wytheville, where ice already was both professionally and personally well known. His offices are situated in the Enterprise Building on Main Street, and he is well established as a general practitioner. During the World war he offered leis services to the Government as a member of the Medical Corps and received a commission as first lieutenant, but the end of hostilities soon afterward prevented his being called into active service.

Doctor Chitwood married at Hillsville, Virginia, on March 1, 191 7, Miss Ethel Dale Tipton, an accomplished and educated lady, who is an alumna of Stonewall Jackson College at Abingdon, Virginia. She is a. daughter of Walter S. and Pattie (Howard) Tipton, the latter of whom is deceased. The father of Mrs. Chitwood is a prominent attorney at Pulaski. Doctor and Mrs. Chitwood have one son, Walter Randolph, who was born October 20, 1920. The Doctor owns a comfortable and attractive residence on Tenth Street, Wytheville, and he and Mrs. Chitwood take part in the pleasant social life of the town. Politically he is a democrat, and professionally has membership in the Southwest Virginia Medical Society, the, Virginia State Medical Society, the Tri-State Medical Society, comprising Virginia and the Carolinas, and the American Medical Association. He is a Knight Templar Mason and a Shriner, a member of Wytheville Fraternal Lodge No. 82, Free and Accepted Masons; Wythe Chapter No. 57., Royal Arch Masons; Lynn Commandery No. 9, Knights Templar; and Kazim Temple, Mystic Shrine. He belongs also to Pulaski Lodge of Elks, and to his college Greek letter fraternity, Chi Zeta Chi. Doctor Chitwood is secretary of the Board of Health at Wytheville as well as health officer.