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Joseph Lionel Shannon was born 15 February 1885 in San Fernando, Trinidad, one of two sons born to Julia Caroline Shabler and Joseph Luther Shannon. The younger Shannon arrived at Ellis Island on 12 August 1905, with $90, having paid his own fare from Barbados to attend school at Iowa State College, where he earned his Doctor of Veterinary Medicine Degree in 1909. Upon immigration, his profession was noted as “clerk” (Ancestry.com, 2010a). While at ISC Shannon was a member of the Veterinary Medicine Society, the Cosmopolitan Club, and Sigma Upsilon Phi. In 1906, he lived in the home of widow Louisa Walters on Boone Street, near what is now the northwest corner of Hayward Avenue. Following graduation, Dr. Shannon stayed in Iowa until 1910, when he returned to Barbados (Ancestry.com, 2010b). 

By January 1915, Dr. Shannon had been appointed as the first Government Veterinary Surgeon of St. Kitts, British West Indies, an appointment heralded as “progressive” and indicative of the “importance of scientific veterinary work” by the Agricultural News: A Fortnightly Review of the Imperial Department of Agriculture for the West Indies (1915, p. 24). In the next few years, Shannon traveled between the U.S. and his West Indian home on several occasions. He returned to the United States in 1916 to purchase a thoroughbred racehorse to bring back to St. Kitts (Famous, 1916, p. 9). Then, on 21 January 1917, the Lexington Herald-Leader reported, “Dr.  J.  Lionel  Shannon,  of  St.  Kitts,  British  West Indies,  has  been  retained  by  John  E.  Madden  as  veterinarian at  Hamburg Place” (p. 9).  Becoming a vet for Madden, the top breeder in the United States from 1917 to 1927 (Voss, 2022) and the man who bred Sir Barton, the first Triple Crown winner (1920), acknowledged Shannon’s expertise in the field of equine medicine. By 1919, Shannon had returned to the British West Indies, once again employed as a government veterinarian, this time in Trinidad, but  he returned to Kentucky on a mission to purchase “fine stock and turkeys for his government for the purposes of breeding” (“Buys,” 1919, p. 5). That same year, he married Grace Constance Marshall in Trindad.

Shannon was still working for the government of Trinidad and Tobago in 1924, when he was employed as the overseer of the government farm, according to The Trinidad and Tobago Year Book (Franklin, 1924). What occurred in Dr. Shannon’s career after that has yet to be discovered in this project’s research. J. Lionel Shannon died in Trinidad in 1963.

Sources

Photo credit: Iowa State University. (1909). 1909 Bomb (p. 92). Retrieved from https://digitalcollections.lib.iastate.edu/islandora/object/isu%3ATheBomb_49215

Ancestry.com. (2010a).  New York, U.S., arriving passenger and crew lists (including Castle Garden and Ellis Island), 1820-1957 [database on-line]. Ancestry.com Operations.

Ancestry.com. (2010b) List or manifest of alien passengers for the United States immigration officer at port of arrival. [database on-line]. Ancestry.com Operations.

Buys fine stock. (1919, May 27). The Mt Sterling advocate. p. 5. 

Famous Old Pastorella bought by R. T. Wilson, Jr.–other good sales of thoroughbreds in Bluegrass. (1916, Oct. 8). Lexington leader. p. 9

Franklin, C.B., compiler. (1924). The Trinidad and Tobago year book. Franklin’s Electric Printery.

Lexington herald-leader. (1917, Jan. 21). Lexington, Kentucky. p. 9.

Personal notes. (1915,  Jan. 16). Agricultural news: A fortnightly review of the Imperial Department of Agriculture for the West Indies, vol.14(332), p. 24. 

Voss, Natalie. (2022, Jul. 6). Kentucky farm time capsule: Before Hamburg Place was a shopping center. The back ring. Retrieved 17 February 2023. https://backring.paulickreport.com/kentucky-farm-time-capsule-before-hamburg-place-was-a-shopping-center/  

Samuel Alonzo Richardson was born December 25, 1892, in Charleston, South Carolina, to Charles Richardson and Mary White Richardson (Kuennen, 2022). In 1912, after receiving a 2-year diploma from Tuskegee Institute (now Tuskegee University), Samuel then came to Iowa State College to study veterinary medicine. While attending ISC, he was summoned back to South Carolina due to the sudden death of his father.  He worked for the Roup shoe store the summer of 1917 but left the position to “enter the senior class” at ISC. Richardson earned his Doctorate of Veterinary Medicine from ISC in 1918.

During his time in Ames, he lived in several locations: Boone & Welsh, Frank’s Place (2840 West Street), and 157 Campus Avenue. Like Black classmates, he joined the Corps of Cadets, which helped to subsidize his tuition at ISC, having reached the rank of Sergeant by the time he registered for the WWI draft in June 1917. Upon graduation, a “reception for the colored boys who are caled (sic) to the colors” was held by Mr. and Mrs. Gater on Kellogg Avenue to honor Dr. Richardson, as well as four other students, before they left Ames to enter (“Ames, IA,” 1918).

After the war, Richardson returned to Iowa. He married Mildred Ethel Beaubian at the A.M.E. Church in Boone, Iowa, on September 19, 1920. The following year, Richardson began coursework at the University of Iowa to pursue a career in medicine. He completed a B.S. in 1926 and his M.D. in 1926. Graduation was followed by interning at a Chicago hospital and, in 1929, a move to Milwaukee, WI, where he was licensed to practice medicine that January (Kuennen, 2022). When Dr. Richardson appeared with his wife and two children in the 1930 U.S. Census, he was working as a meat inspector at a packing house. By the time of the 1940 U.S. Census, two children later, he was employed as a physical scientist at a Milwaukee hospital. He was self-employed as an M.D. by the time he registered for the Old Man’s Draft in 1942.

By 1950, the Richardsons had separated, and Samuel had returned to Charleston, where he opened a shoe repair store. How long he was employed in the profession he worked at while attending ISC is unknown, but at the time of his death ten years later, his occupation was once again listed as “veterinarian.”

Dr. Samuel Alonzo Richardson, died 28 July 1960, at the age of 68 of natural causes in Lincolnville, SC, and is buried in the Reserved Fellowship Cemetery in Charleston, SC.

Sources

Ames, IA. (1918, July 19). The bystander. n.p.

Kuennen, Brad, ISU Veterinary Medicine early graduates of color, University Library, Iowa State University,. Retrieved from https://instr.iastate.libguides.com/c.php?g=1224480&p=8958307