.

Bio- Sawyers
SURNAMES:  TASKER, WILT,

Occupying a place of prominence among the leading physicians and surgeons of Santa Clara County is Jerome B. Thomas, a specialist in eye, ear, nose and throat diseases. A man of superior ability and force of character, with a well-earned stock of medical knowledge, he has gained, during his eight years' residence in this locality, the confidence of the people in an eminent degree, and is rapidly building up a substantial and lucrative practice. A native of Kansas, he was born April 30, 1867, in Wyandotte County. When he was a small child his parents moved to Ohio, where his father, Dr. Jerome B. Thomas, was an army surgeon in the employ of the government, with the rank of colonel; later he became governor of the National Military Home at Dayton, Ohio, and at this place the early years of our subject's life was spent. His mother before her marriage was Miss Harriet N. R. Tasker, a native of Massachusetts and born in New Bedford. They were the parents of six children, of whom our subject is the third.

Jerome B. grew up at the National Military Home and attended school in the grammar and high schools of Dayton, and was prepared for college at private and preparatory schools in Ohio. He then entered the University of Michigan at Ann Harbor and was graduated from that institution in 1887 with the degree of A. B. He then went to Europe and studied for fifteen months in the universities of Leipzig and Munich. Upon his return to the United States he entered the Long Island College Hospital at Brooklyn, N. Y., from which he was graduated in 1892. He then served for a year as interne at the hospital of his Alma Mater in Brooklyn, and at the end of the year established his own office in Brooklyn and was thus engaged until he entered the Filipino War in 1900. He was sent to the Philippine Islands as acting assistant surgeon and later was promoted to a captaincy in the United States Volunteers. He resigned from the army and was appointed surgeon in charge of the Civil Government Sanitarium at Baguio, Province of Benguet, and there met Governor-General Taft, General Wood, and other civil and military officials. For three years he remained in charge of the sanitarium and helped to build it up. The sanitarium is located on a mountain at an altitude of 5000 feet above sea level and the government spent about three millions of dollars in building up the place with good roads, etc. He then came back to New York and entered the New York Eye and Ear Infirmary, and took a post-graduate course of one year and again opened an office in Brooklyn practicing his specialty.

While residing in Brooklyn Dr. Thomas married Miss Mary Denison Wilt, of Dayton, Ohio. Dr. Thomas remained in Brooklyn until 1910 when, on account of failing health, he was obliged to change climate and removed to. California. Settling in Santa Cruz, he opened offices and was occupied for three years; in 1913 he moved to Palo Alto and opened offices in the Frazer Building, located on University avenue; for two years he served as a member of the clinical staff of the University of California. Dr. Thomas entered the service of his country during the late war in May, 1918, and was commissioned a captain of the medical corps and put in charge of the eye, ear, nose and throat section of the base hospital at Camp Fremont. He was honorably discharged on December 10, 1918. At the present time he is consulting surgeon in the United States Health Hospital at Palo Alto, and well deserves the reputation which he enjoys of being one of the most skillful and faithful physicians and surgeons of this section.

From Eugene T. Sawyers' History of Santa Clara County,California, published by Historic Record Co. , 1922. page 1451
cdf
RETURN TO SANTA CLARA COUNTY FAMILY CHRONICLES

SANTA CLARA COUNTY The Valley of Heart's Delight