By Terri Jo Ryan

Tribune-Herald staff writer

The medical history of Moody, in southwestern McLennan County, stretches back more than 125 years.

The town, established in 1881, was founded when the Gulf, Colorado and Santa Fe Railway built a section of track between Temple and Fort Worth. The new community was named in honor of William Lewis Moody, a director of the railroad company

The community grew rapidly, drawing many of its early residents and business interests from nearby Perry, which had been bypassed by the railroad.

The town boasts one of the first drug stores in Texas, built in 1882 and operated by the Payne family for several decades. The structure at 500 Ave. E is now vacant, after having served as a series of gift stores for more than a decade. The second story of Payne’s drug store was home to the International Order of Odd Fellows Lodge, an early telephone company and many physicians’ offices.

North Carolina native Charles Lewis Clay (1848-1906) is credited with being the town’s first doctor. He graduated from the Louisville (Ky.) School of Medicine, and moved to Gatesville in 1871. Three years later, he moved to Perry, married Nannie Peebles of Gatesville, and they started a family of four boys.

Clay moved his family to Moody in 1881, along with other Perry residents, and was a partner in the Payne’s drug store. After more than 30 years of doctoring in Central Texas, he died Sept. 20, 1906, and is buried in the Moody Cemetery.

Moody town historians laud the memory of Dr. Owen Riley Marshall (1871-1933).

The native of Stampede Valley, located six miles northwest of Moody, at a young age expressed a desire to study medicine. After graduating from Salado College, he continued his studies at Galveston Medical University, and then went on to Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tenn. He received his medical degree in 1898 and returned to Moody.

The people of Meridian petitioned him to move to their city, where in 1900 he took over the practice of an elderly doctor who wanted to retire. He became Bosque County’s health officer in 1901, while maintaining his full-time practice.

Marshall married Moody’s Mattie Hill in 1903 in the new Methodist Church of Moody.

In 1905 more than 100 people signed a petition urging the Marshalls to return to Moody. He accepted the call and returned to his hometown to practice medicine. Their only son, Riley Hill Marshall, was born in 1907.

Marshall was appointed chief surgeon for the Santa Fe Railroad and performed his surgical work in Temple hospitals. During World War I, Marshall enlisted in the Army and was named a captain in the Medical Corps. When the war ended in 1918, he returned to Moody and his medical practice.

He died in Moody in the spring of 1933. He is also buried in the Moody Cemetery.

Sources: Ken Gates of Moody; Moody Public Library oral history collections; Estelle Mabray Rice estate; Handbook of Texas Online; MoodyTexas.com; Fred Acree Papers, Center of American History, University of Texas at Austin; Moody Texas: Its History And Its People, 1852-1981.