Dr. Pruitt to Practice in Monroe, Aug. 5, 1919

From The Monroe Journal, Aug. 5, 1919

Dr. Pruitt To Locate Here

Dr. George C. Pruitt, prominent physician of Anderson, S.C., has decided to locate in Monroe, and will move his family here in the next few days. He has secured offices over the Union Drug Co., and will be ready for the practice of his profession by August 15.

Dr. Pruitt has just recently received his discharge from the army, having served two years in France in the medical corps with the rank of Captain. He enlisted June 27, and immediately sailed for France with the first engineers, as battalion surgeon. Later he was transferred to a field hospital, where he served for five months. During the remainder of his stay in France he was regimental surgeon for the 18^th Infantry.

After the armistice was signed, Dr. Pruitt was in the advance party that preceded the American army of occupation into Germany. It was his duty to make tests of the available water supply and to inspect general sanitary conditions. Speaking of his entrance into Germany, Dr. Pruitt said: “The natives showed alarm at our approach. The men would hide at the sight of us, while the women would stand in the doors, trembling with fear. They had heard that the Americans would ransack their homes and mistreat their women and children. We soon convinced them that the Americans had no wicked or cowardly designs upon them. Thereafter they were very friendly as everyone who was in the third army can testify.”

Dr. Pruitt graduated in 1911 from the Atlanta Medical College and started practicing in Elberton, Ga., where he made a reputation for this skill and conduct, as testified by the following letter received by Mr. A.M. Secrest from Dr. W.J. Matthews of Elberton:

“I was intimately acquainted with Dr. George C. Pruitt from the time of his graduation in the spring of 1911 to 917 when he joined the medical department of the army. He practiced his profession in Elberton for several years of this period, locating in a territory contiguous to me. I was associated with him frequently in a professional capacity. It affords me great pleasure to commend him as well qualified by intuition, education, and moral characteristics above reproach. All of his co-practitioners held him in high esteem. His clientele was among the best citizens in his vicinity, and were loathe to give him up.”

Dr. Pruitt has not yet been able to secure a home, but will doubtless be able to do so before the 15^th. Those who have met Dr. Pruitt have been favorably impressed with his appearance and are delighted that Monroe has secured him for a citizen. Dr. Pruitt also expressed himself as being pleased with his new home. “I traveled over a good part of North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia in search of a new place to locate, but no community showed up as well as Monroe, in social atmosphere and future economic progress,” he said to The Journal.