Biography of Walter Lee Johnston, M.D.

WALTER LEE JOHNSTON, M. D., is established in the suc-
cessful general practice of his profession in the thriving
industrial City of McDowell, in the county of the same
name. In addition to his specifically private practice as a
physician and surgeon he is retained as official physician
of the Roanoke Coal & Coke Company, the Arlington Coal
& Coke Company, the Gilliam Coal Company and the Indian
Ridge Coal & Coke Company. His practice is now of such
broad scope that he has Doctor Steel as his assistant, and
where patients require hospital service he has recourse to the
Miners' State Hospital No. 1 at Welch, the Bluefield Sani-
tarium and St. Luke's Hospital at Bluefield. The doctor
shows a fine sense of stewardship in his profession and
maintains affiliation with the McDowell County Medical
Society, the West Virginia State Medical Society and the
American Medical Association.

Doctor Johnston was born at Princeton, Mercer County,
West Virginia, April 27, 1872, and is a son of James Ed-
ward and Ellen Elizabeth (Wall) Johnston, the former of
whom was born in Virginia and the latter in what is now
West Virginia. James E. Johnston, a farmer by vocation,
served as a loyal soldier of the Confederacy during the
Civil war. He was a steward in the Methodist Episcopal
Church, South, of which his wife likewise was a devoted
member. The lineage of the Johnston family traces back
to Scotch and Irish sources, and its first American repre-
sentatives settled in Virginia in the Colonial period of our
national history.

The public schools of his native county afforded Doctor
Johnston his early education, and he was a lad of sixteen
years at the time of his father's death. After completing
his studies in the Princeton schools he was a student in the
State Normal School at Athens until 1888, and for three
years thereafter he was a clerk in a general store at Oak-
vale. He carefully conserved his earnings and utilized his
savings in defraying the expenses of his professional educa-
tion. He entered the College of Medicine of the University
of Virginia, this department being in the City of Richmond,
and there he was graduated as a member of the class of
1899 and with the degree of Doctor of Medicine. He has
made McDowell the central stage of his professional service
from the time of his graduation, and has gained high stand-
ing as an able and resourceful physician and surgeon and as
a broad-minded and progressive citizen.

December 26, 1901, recorded the marriage of Doctor
Johnston and Miss Nellie F. Keating, daughter of John J.
and Ann (Canfield) Keating, both natives of Pennsylvania.
Mr. and Mrs. Keating reside at Eckman, West Virginia,
and he is successfully engaged in the wholesale grocery
business. Doctor and Mrs. Johnston are communicants of
the Catholic Church and in politics he is a stanch democrat.
The only child, Walter Broughton Johnston, is, in 1922, a
student in the high school at North Fork.


From The History of West Virginia, Old and New, page 56

Submitted by Valerie F. Crook <vfcrook@trellis.net>

****************************************************************

USGENWEB NOTICE:  These electronic pages may NOT be reproduced in
any format for profit or presentation by any other organization or
persons.  Persons or organizations desiring to use this material,
must obtain the written consent of the contributor, or the legal
representative of the submitter, and contact the listed USGenWeb
archivist with proof of this consent. Files may be printed or copied
for personal use only.

****************************************************************