Dr. Clarence Horace Kinnaman, Director of County Health Works and State Epidemiologist

Here are three photographs showing Dr. Clarence Horace Kinnaman, Director of County Health Works and Kansas State Epidemiologist. One photograph shows him at his desk in the Kansas Capitol and the others are portraits. He was born June 30, 1869 in Ottumwa, Iowa, the only son of Dr. and Mrs. Horace A. Kinnaman. He attended public schools in Keokuk, Iowa and graduated from the Keokuk Medical College in 1899. After passing the Iowa State Medical Board examinations, he practiced medicine in his father's office. On October 1, 1917, he was commissioned as a first lieutenant in the Medical Reserve Corps of the United States Army and ordered to Camp Funston, Kansas, with the 89th Division. Dr. Kinnaman was assigned to the Division Surgeon's Office as an assistant to the camp's sanitary inspector. In February 1918, he was made commanding officer of Sanitary Squad No. 2, 314th Sanitary Train, 98th Division, and the following June was assigned to overseas duty. He returned to the United States the following July and was honorably discharged. Dr. Kinnaman came to Kansas on January 1, 1920 to become health officer of Geary County. On September 1, 1922, Dr. Kinnaman accepted an appointment as Director of County Health Work and State Epidemiologist for the Kansas State Board of Health, heading the Division of Communicable Diseases and Rural Sanitation. At the time he accepted this position, Dr. Samuel Crumbine was the State Health Officer. After Dr. Crumbine's resignation in April, 1923, the Kansas Board of Health was involved in turmoil. In 1925, Dr. Kinnaman was made Chief of the Division of Communicable Disease Control and State Epidemiologist. He was involved in a campaign to eradicate diphtheria and fight other diseases. He and his wife Harriet Alice Samuels Kinnaman had three children that lived, Dr. Joseph H. Kinnaman, Ruth Kinnaman O'Malley, and Margaret Kinnaman Schulte. Dr. Kinnaman died on July 9, 1957 at Winter General Hospital in Topeka, Kansas. He and his wife are buried at Oakland National Cemetery in Keokuk, Iowa.