Hall County
HENRY B. BOYDEN, M. D.-In the light of modern discoveries in medicine and surgery, it is no longer the privilege of the old practitioners to command exclusively the confidence of the sick. Experience, in many cases, has been forced to make way for the skill brought about by training under favorable conditions in newly developed paths of medical science and in the amazing ones in the field of surgery. Grand Island is fortunate in having within its borders a number of capable medical practitioners, one of the youngest and most able being Dr. Henry B. Boyden.
Dr. Boyden was born a Ravenna, in Buffalo County, Nebraska, January 12, 1889. His parents are Fred D. and Mary (Smith) Boyden, the former of whom was born in Chicago, Illinois, and the latter in Des Moines, Iowa. The maternal grandfather of Dr. Boyden was the real founder of Ravenna, which stands on the land he homesteaded when he located as a pioneer in Buffalo County. He set out many of the beautiful trees which adorn the streets of Ravenna. For many years during his lifetime, he conducted a land bureau for the government, and the mother of Dr. Boyden still carries it on. The father of Dr. Boyden came to grand Island in the Oeighties to go into the drug store with his brother, and two years later bought a store at Ravenna. Some years later he went into the drug business in Chicago, where he is now in the business. Dr. Boyden has a younger sister, Helen, who is the wife of Rev. McIrvin, a minister of the Methodist Episcopal church at Edgar, Nebraska.
In 1904 Dr. Boyden was graduated from the Ravenna high school, after which he spent two years in Doane College, at Crete, and three years in the University of Nebraska, securing his B.Sc. degree from the latter institution in 1909. He then entered Rush Medical College, Chicago, from which he was graduated in 1911. He came to grand Island in 1912. Prior to this, however, Dr. Boyden served for eighteen months in the Cook County Hospital and for three months as an interne. Dr. Boyden is a surgery specialist and has been well prepared for this branch of medical science, at different times taking graduate courses with the noted surgeons of Rochester, Minnesota, New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Cleveland and Chicago. He was already engrossed in practice when public events interrupted his career. He entered the army of the United States on April 12, 1918, spent three and a half months at Fort Riley in training, and six months at Camp Beauregard, and was honorably discharged in January, 1919. He immediately returned home and has resumed his former activities.
Dr. Boyden married, September 20, 1916, Miss Eva Marie Brix, who was born at Lexington, Nebraska. Her father, Charles Brix, was connected with the milling business in Lexington. Later he returned with his wife to their old old homestead in Denmark, where Mrs. Brix subsequently died. Mr. Brix is now engaged in business in Omaha, Nebraska. Farmerly (sic) Mrs. Boyden was a trained nurse in the Clarkson hospital, Omaha. Dr. and Mrs. Boyden have one child, Annabel Lee Boyden. They are members of the Episcopal church. In politics the doctor is a zealous Republican. He has long been identified with Masonic bodies. He still maintains his interest and membership in his college Greek letter medical fraternity.
Dr. Boyden occupies the offices of the late Henry D. Boyden, who was his uncle.
