Date of Birth:  1-6-1887 (Deceased)

Place of Birth:  Near Hopedale IL

Married 4-30-25 to Edith Myrtle Webb, school teacher.  Children:  Lucy Katherine Fischer Shifflett, school teacher; George Franklin Fischer, D.V.M., MO ’54 U.S. Army; and Elizabeth Ann Fischer Fugate, school teacher.

Dr. Fischer’s parents were German immigrant farmers, having arrived in the United States in 1883.  The family moved to rural Garden City MO in 1905 via railroad.  His parents and two sisters rode the passenger coach while he and a brother accompanied the livestock and household goods in a stock car.

His basic education was gained in the rural Illinois schools.

Dr. Fischer was admitted to the Kansas City Veterinary College in October 1909 upon his obtaining satisfactory scores on their entrance examination.  Any student completing their first year of college was permitted to apply for a non-graduate license and was tested for competency.  Such license entitled the holder to practice for three years.  This was to permit the earning of funds to pay fees for further education.  Dr. Fischer obtained such non-graduate license in April 1910.  He returned to KCVC in the fall of 1910 for the 1910-1911 college year, practiced the summer of 1911, and finished his veterinary degree in April 1912.  He returned to Garden City and established a general practice where he was active in veterinary medicine until 1958.  He suffered a coronary while delivering a calf in mid-February 1958 and died a week later in a Kansas City hospital. 

Some of the things he related when talking about his college years was working for the Kansas City Times/Star newspaper company, bundling and carrying papers to the distribution wagons during the late evening and early morning hours.  He also related the many trips the students made with faculty to attend the large stables where the horses used by the dairies, bakeries, and drayage firms maintained their animals.

Dr. Fischer was one of many veterinarians who contracted with the state and federal authorities in the testing of cattle for tuberculosis in the eradication programs in the late 1920’s and early 1930’s.  He diagnosed his first case of equine encephalomyelitis in Bates County MO in 1935.

Dr. Fischer was very active in the Kansas City Veterinary Association, being often visited by Dr. J. C. Flynn, the first companion animal practitioner in Kansas City.