Frazier, John Richard (1861–1945)

John Richard Frazier, medical society president, city health officer of Fort Worth, Mexican Army colonel, and physician in Texas and Mexico, was born on a plantation in Bosque County, Texas, on December 8, 1861. He was the son of James C. Frazier (1831–1917) and Emily A. (Moore) Frazier (1838–1929). James C. Frazier, his father, was a partner with Jacob Raphael De Cordova and made many of the original surveys of land grants in Texas. John Richard Frazier moved to Waco, Texas, with his family in 1871.

Frazier graduated from Waco University (now Baylor University) in 1879. He participated in some railroad surveys before becoming interested in medicine. He graduated from the Jefferson Medical College (now Sidney Kimmel Medical College) in Philadelphia on March 29, 1884, and the title of his thesis was “General Parenchymatous Hepatitis.” Frazier returned to Texas to practice medicine and was a member of the Waco Medical Association (now the McLennan County Medical Society). In 1893 he moved to Monterrey, Mexico, where he served as chief surgeon for the employees of the Monterrey and Gulf Railroad. He was appointed chief surgeon for the Vera Cruz and Pacific Railroad in 1901. Because of his knowledge of yellow fever and its transmission, Frazier served on the yellow fever commission in Vera Cruz. Gen. Porfirio Díaz commissioned Frazier an honorary colonel in the Mexican Army to assist with his recommendations. In 1903 Frazier relocated to Fort Worth, where he became the first company physician for recently-opened Swift and Company. He was elected president of the Tarrant County Medical Society in 1905, and he served as the Fort Worth city health officer until 1906. Frazier served as a delegate to the meeting of the Grand Lodge of the Knights of Pythias in 1912. He was a member of the anti-Ku Klux Klan delegation to the Texas Democratic Convention held in Austin in 1924.

Frazier married Harriet “Hallie” Lavinia Flint, the daughter of John Thompson Flint and Lavina H. Feurt, on December 18, 1888, at the First Baptist Church of Waco. Hallie (Flint) Frazier was a charter member and officer of the North Side Emergency Club. Her funeral was officiated by the Reverend William P. Witsell, rector of Saint Paul’s Episcopal Church of Waco. The couple had the following known children: Emily Estelle, Harriet Lavinia, John Flint, Wallace Moore, and Mary Nelson. John Richard Frazier died on June 11, 1945, in Fort Worth, Texas, and was buried in the Flint family plot at the First Street Cemetery, Waco.