Pioneer Doctor and Family Rest Eternally in Historic Lorain County Cemetery

Dr. Arthur Strong Adams spent very little time in Avon Lake during his lifetime, and almost all of his professional career outside of Ohio, but he chose Avon Lake’s beautiful lakeside Lake Shore Cemetery as the final resting place for himself and his wife, perhaps because his mother and two siblings, none of whom he ever knew, are also buried there.

Arthur was born just west of Avon Lake (which was then Avon Township) in Sheffield, on February 10, 1850, the son of William Harrison Adams and Octa Backus Strong. Arthur was the third of the couple’s three children, and the only child who lived to adulthood. His brother, Myron Harrison, lived only three months, and his sister, Ellen, died at 17 months old.

Both of Arthur’s parents were born in New York State and came separately to Ohio. They were married March 9, 1841, in Lorain County. This was the first marriage for Octa, a schoolteacher, and the second for William, a farmer, whose first wife, Mary A. (maiden name unknown), died August 29, 1839, at age 22, and is buried in Lake Shore Cemetery. Octa, the daughter of Jamin and Belsaria (Tillotson) Strong, died at age 31 on March 2, 1850, less than one month after Arthur’s birth.

On May 31, 1850, when Arthur was almost four months old, his father married a third time, to Mary Ann Ellsworth, who was born about 1820 in Mount Vernon, Westchester County, NY. By the mid 1850s, the family had moved to Delaware in Delaware County, OH, about 25 miles north of Columbus. Soon, Arthur had three half siblings: Willie J., born about 1857; Octa L., born May 6, 1860; and Elmer, born about 1864.

At age 17, in 1867, Arthur attended Ohio Wesleyan University in Delaware. A page from the university's catalogue for the 1867-1868 academic year that includes Arthur's class is shown in the accompanying photo. Arthur graduated with an M.D. in 1875 from the Medical Department of the University of Wooster, Cleveland. From 1875 to 1885, he practiced medicine in that city. On March 18, 1885, also in Cleveland, Arthur married Emma J. (Nettie) Ford. She was born December 22, 1854, in Cleveland, the fourth of six children of William H. Ford and Ann Gordon, both from England.

Soon after their marriage, Arthur and Emma moved to Rochester, Olmsted County, MN, where he served as the health officer for Rochester and the coroner for that county. He was a member of the Olmsted County and Southern Minnesota Medical Societies, American and Minnesota State Medical Associations, and a member of the Masonic order.

Arthur may have been influenced in his vocation by his uncle, Dr. Jamin Strong, who was well known for his work with nervous and mental diseases. He lived in Oberlin and practiced medicine in Elyria from 1849 to 1869. Beginning in 1875, he served as medical superintendent of Cleveland State Hospital until 1890. He also published numerous papers and annual reports in his area of study. He died at his home in Cleveland on January 29, 1895, at age 69.

Arthur and Emma had no biological children, but adopted a child, Antoline, born in 1893 in Minnesota. She married Edward Francis Silver, son of Maurice and Elizabeth (Greenwood) Silver on June 16, 1914, in Howard County, IA, and they had several children.

Around 1919, Arthur and Emma moved back to Ohio, to the Cleveland suburb of Lakewood, where Emma’s sister, Lillian, and her family resided. Emma died from complications of cancer on August 20, 1924, at age 70, and Arthur died January 3, 1929, at age 79 after a short illness with bronchial pneumonia.