California Biographies
Mendocino and Lake Counties, California
 
Transcribed by Peggy Hooper

This file is part of the California Genealogy & History Archives 
http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~cagha/index.htm

Source:
History of Mendocino and Lake Counties, California
With Biographical Sketches
History by Aurelius O. Carpenter And Percy H. Millberry
Illustrated, Complete In One Volume
Historic Record Company, Los Angeles, California, 1914


GEORGE A. WOELFFEL, M. D.� Some years prior to the outbreak of 
the Civil war Richard Woelffel, a native of Stalien, Germany, and a young 
man of recognized efficiency as an accountant, came to the United States, 
where he found employment at his chosen occupation. As soon as war was 
declared between the north and south he volunteered in the Union service 
and was commissioned captain in an Illinois regiment, which he accompa- 
nied to the front, with his command he bore a part in numerous thrilling 
adventures and closely contested engagements. Detailed in charge of the 
commissary department, he continued in the service until after the close of 
the struggle and was honorably discharged at the expiration of four years 
and seven months. Coming via Panama to California in 1866, he continued his 
work as an accountant in Sacramento and afterward in San Francisco. From 
the last-named city he came to Mendocino county, where for many years he 
engaged as superintendent of the Navarro mills and eventually resigned upon 
retiring from active business duties. His death occurred December 5, 1912, in 
San Francisco, where still lives his widow Sarah (Carson) Woelffel, a 
native of New Jersey. All of their five children are still living. The next to 
the eldest. George August, was born in Sacramento. June 27, 1868, and in 
1885 graduated from the San Francisco high school. From early boyhood 
it had been his ambition to enter the medical profession. With that object in 
view he went to Iowa and matriculated in the medical department of the State 
University at Keokuk, from which he was graduated in 1897 with the degree 
of M. D. Meanwhile he had served for a number of years as an interne in 
St. Joseph's and Mercy hospitals in that city. 

Upon returning to the west at the completion of his medical course Dr. 
Woelffel began to practice at Albion. Mendocino county, where he acted as 
surgeon for the Albion Lumber Company until the time of the great fire there. 
Since 1900 he has engaged in the practice of medicine at Willits, where in 
addition to having established an excellent private practice in the community 
he engages as surgeon for the Northwestern Redwood Company and as medical 
director of the hospital at Northwestern. His comfortable home on Commer- 
cial street is presided over by his wife, whom he married in Ukiah and who 
was Miss Lucia Thompson, a native of Nova Scotia. Along the line of his 
profession he is connected with the California State Medical Association and 
the Pacific Association of Railway Surgeons. In politics he is of the Repub- 
lican faith. His fraternities are numerous, including the Druids, Woodmen 
of the World, Knights of Maccabees, Ancient Order of Foresters, Eagles and 
Moose, and the Uniform Rank, Knights of Pythias, in which he is assistant 
surgeon on staff. Besides being identified with the Benevolent Protective 
Order of Elks in the Santa Rosa Lodge, he is active in Masonry ever since 
having been made a Mason in Mendocino Lodge. Of recent years he has been 
associated with Willits Lodge No. 365, F. & A. M., while with his wife he holds 
membership with Willits Chapter No. 314, O. E. S.