Biographical Sketch of Dr. Monroe Dixon McClain Jr.
March 30, 1910 – March 13, 1997
On October 25, 1872 Monroe Dixon McClain, Sr. was born near Bryant in Saline County, Arkansas to the farming family of James M. and Harriet Ann McClain. In the 1900 U.S. Census he was living in Perkins, Saline County with the occupation of Physician. In 1902 he graduated from the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences and later took courses in surgery at the Rush Medical College of the University of Chicago. He then returned to Little Rock and began a medical practice.
On October 25, 1905 he wed Sarah Elizabeth Con. On Wednesday, March 30, 1910 the young couple celebrated the birth of their first child whom they named after the baby’s father. The couples’ joy was to be short lived. Tragically Dr. McClain was fatally injured in an automobile accident November 15, 1911 when the child was but nineteen and one-half months old. “His year old child was severely hurt when an automobile which he was driving crashed into a United States mail wagon at Markham and Spring Streets about seven forty-five o’clock last night. Dr. McClain’s wife and his sister-in-law, Miss Cox, were also thrown from the car to the pavement but escaped without injury, other than a severe shock.”1
Dr. McClain was laid to rest in Little Rock’s historic Oakland Cemetery. “Members of Capital City Camp No. 13243 of the Modern Woodmen of America, attended the funeral in a body. Members of Bayard-Damon Lodge No. 3, Knights of Pythias, Women’s Circle No. 3 of Maple Grove Lodge of the Woodmen of the World, Camp No. 5, Woodmen of the World, Fraternal Union of America, Lodge No. 113, and the Pulaski County Medical Association attended the funeral in a body.
The students of the medical department of the University of Arkansas and the graduate nurses of the city attended in a body.”2
Elizabeth McClain struggled to raise her young son and see to his needs. In the 1920 U. S. Census she and Monroe are continuing to live in Little Rock where she has rented rooms in their house to three lodgers. As Monroe matures he plans to carry on his father’s desire to care for those in need of medical services. “Upon graduating from Little Rock High School and Hendrix College, he applied for and was accepted into the Arkansas School of Medicine, graduating in 1937. He interned at Robert B. Greene, San Antonio, Texas and served his residency at Baptist Memorial Hospital in Houston, Texas.”3 He then returned to Little Rock and began his medical practice.
His practice was interrupted by the blowing winds of world war on the horizon. Hitler was loose in Germany, Mussolini in Italy, the Japanese in the Pacific. Dr. McClain could read the writing on the wall. He enlisted in the U. S. Army on March 1, 1941, ten months before the Japanese murdered two thousand four hundred and eight sailors and soldiers in an attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. The Army assigned him to the medical corp of the 85th infantry division. He served in the initial European invasion led by the 85th, as a major. He saw the war to its end, being discharged January 24, 1946 and returned home to resume his medical practice. In the 1950 U. S. Census he and his mother are still living in the family home while he maintains his private practice.
On October 14, 1956 he and Ruby June Simpson were married in Pulaski County.
Dr. McClain was in family practice for 25 years before joining the Veterans Medical Administration caring for the men and women who answered their country’s call to serve. He was there five years before retiring in 1986.
“He served as past president and charter member of the Arkansas Academy Family Practice. He was a member of the American Medical Association, Southern Medical Association, American Academy Family Practice and Senior Physicians of Pulaski County. Dr. McClain was a member of Magnolia Lodge #50 Consistory and was a 50-year member of the Shriners.”3
He lost his mother on May 7, 1970. She is buried in Oakland Cemetery next to her husband. Monroe Dixon McClain, Jr. died March 13, 1997 and was laid to rest in Oakland Cemetery as well. He is in the family plot with the mother who provided for him all those years and the father he never knew.
1 Arkansas Gazette Little Rock, Arkansas, November 11, 1911, p. 3
2 Arkansas Gazette (Little Rock, Arkansas), November 18, 1911, p. 14
3Arkansas Democrat-Gazette (Little Rock, Arkansas), March 15, 1997,
p.4B column 1
4 Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, Little Rock, Arkansas, p. 4B, column 1
John T. Mitchell, BBA
November16, 2024