FRANK HENRY ENDERS

During the Civil War Frank joined the Confederate Army and was soon promoted to lieutenant. He received a bullet wound in the region of the lungs, which was the cause of poor health in later life. Near the end of the war he was taken prisoner and confined at Vicksburg, but shortly after, while being moved, he escaped by jumping into the Mississippi River and landing at Cairo, Illinois. After many privations, he managed to reach his home in Kentucky.

At the conclusion of the war he entered Jefferson Medical College at Philadelphia, where he studied under the internationally known surgeon, Dr. Samuel D. Gross, and graduated in 1867. He began his practice in Paducah.

It was in Paducah that Dr. Enders married Miss Lizzie Saunders, daughter of Dr. D.B. Saunders. The doctor and his wife became the parents of three children: a son, Frank, a daughter, and a third child, sex unknown.

Ill health forced him to give up medicine and enter the drug business, and he soon moved to Cape Girardeau, Missouri. Following a severe illness, he went to St. Louis.

In 1873 Dr. Enders came to Wailuku, Maui, where he bought out the practice of Dr. John G. Brooks and also became government physician for the Wailuku district. In 1879 he went into partnership with Dr. John Bemiss, newly arrived on Maui. In 1882 the Board of Health appointed Dr. Enders port physician at Kahului. That same year King Kalakaua visited Wailuku and the doctor served on the reception committee and gave a short welcoming speech. When Wailuku Hospital was completed in 1884, Dr. Enders was made physician in charge of the institution, which could accommodate 40 ward patients and had four private rooms. He is credited with influencing the Sisters of Charity to come to Wailuku and provide the nursing care for the hospital.

The doctor became interested in the Alden Taro and Fruit Drying Company, and in August, 1883, he bought the original charter and took as his partner in the business Mr. A. Barnes.

Dr. Enders died November 29, 1884, at Wailuku, just after his 43rd birthday.

He was a member of the Harmony Lodge No. 3, IOOF, and was also a Mason.

The following tribute to Dr. Enders is quoted from the "Hawaiian Gazette" of December 17, 1884:

To his wise care and forethought we owe it that the Hospital for the sick poor is a flourishing institution and carefully attended by the noble and devoted band of sisters whom his influence brought here. How dear that good cause was to his heart was manifest in his last conscious moments, being perhaps his last dream as the last movement of his lips seem to have indicated.

In Memoriam Index