UMHB Frazier Memorial Health Center

In the late 1950s, Mary Hardin-Baylor College began its “Million Dollar Campaign” to fund four new buildings and repairs and renovations on existing structures. The buildings were a library, a dormitory, a student center, and a hospital. The hospital was called the Frazier Memorial Health Center, dedicated to longtime college physician and professor, Dr. J. M. Frazier.

Jacob Moore Frazier was born at Kimball in Bosque County, Texas. He received his B.A. degree from Waco University and his M.D. degree and Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania. He married Minnie Chamberlain, and they were parents to seven children. Before coming to Belton in 1894, he practiced medicine in Kimball and lived in Morgan for twelve years. In Belton, he was in private practice as well as serving as the physician at Baylor College for Women. Dr. Frazier was head of the college’s biology department and taught anatomy, physiology, and hygiene. Active in civic and professional affairs, he served as the local Council of Defense chairman I and was accepted into the Voluntary Medical Reserve Corps of the U.S. Army during World War I. He participated on the board of directors of the Young Men’s Chamber of Commerce and the Carnegie Library, assisted in planning for the improvement of the public square and streets in Belton, and was a member of the State Board of Health. When the growth of Baylor College led to overflowing attendance at the Baptist church, Dr. Frazier was one of many prominent Beltonians who was named to the building committee for a new church.

When the Spanish flu reared its ugly head in Belton in 1918 and struck more than 400 students at the college, Frazier acted decisively as he described in his autobiography, “My success under Providence lay in the fact that I had absolute control of the situation. We removed every girl from the dormitory on a stretcher and rigidly enforced a recumbent position until the temperature was normal for 48 hours. Liquid nourishment, lots of fluids, lemonade, water, and buttermilk, after the preliminary mild purgative, usually castor oil, composed each patient’s diet.” He was no stranger to epidemics, having experienced a scarlet fever outbreak as a young doctor in Philadelphia and a typhoid fever epidemic not long after he arrived in Belton. Frazier found the source of the infection to be a rusted sewage pipe which contaminated the dining hall’s milk crocks as they aired and dried in the sun. Once the pipes were replaced and the ground disinfected, no other cases of influenza developed. Frazier happily reported that although the Spanish flu was extremely serious and contagious, he “counted it a blessing to report that I had not a single fatality.” Frazier later battled outbreaks of scarlet fever and Vincent’s Angina (trench mouth) on campus.

The Fraziers built a home at 618 North Wall between 1905 and 1915, a time when Belton experienced a cotton boom and a construction boom in modest, middle-class residences. The house, an Arts and Crafts bungalow, was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1990 and is still standing. Dr. Frazier remained active until his death. At the age of 84, he enrolled for two college courses, taught by his life-long friend, Dr. E. G. Townsend. “Asserting that he doesn’t want to stagnate just because he is getting a little old,” Frazier signed up for Ethics and New Testament History in the religious education department. Dr. Frazier died on July 8, 1941, of a heart attack and is buried alongside his wife at North Belton Cemetery.

“Baptists Need Larger Building.” Temple Daily Telegram, January 15, 1919.

Bosque County History Book Committee. Bosque County: Land and People. (A History of Bosque County, Texas). Dallas, Tex.: the committee, 1985. https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark/67531/metapth91038/

“College Doctor Again Student at Age 84.” The Bartlett Tribune, March 14, 1941.

“Dedication of New MH-B Building Is Scheduled for Friday, April 15.” Belton Journal, April 7, 1960.

“Dr. J. K. Frazier, Former Bosque Citizen, Dies July 8.” The Clifton Record, July 11, 1941.

Frazier, J.M., et al. From Tallow Candle to Television: An Autobiography of Dr. J.M. Frazier. Belton, Tex.: University of Mary Hardin-Baylor, 1981.

Mays, Christi. “Pioneering UMHB Physician Dealt with Earlier Pandemic.” Baptist Standard, July 23, 2021.

“M.H.B. Million Dollar Campaign Now Underway.” The Bartlett Tribune, July 18, 1958.

“No Slackers in Frazier Family.” Temple Daily Telegram, June 17, 1918.

United States Department of the Interior. National Park Service. National Register of Historic Places Registration Form. Washington, D. C.: the department, n.d.