This lengthy obituary for Doc from the Johnson County Democrat, gives a great sense of the man.
July 1931, Johnson County Democrat (Olathe, Kansas)
Life of George B. (Doc) Mahaffie
And now another of the ties that bound memory to the days of childhood has been broken by the relentless hand of time in the death of George B. (Doc) Mahaffie. He died at his home near Hobart, Oklahoma, on Sunday, July 5th.
It was a rollicking gay crowd of young blades, imbued with all the courage and energy of their pioneer parents, who made up the first generation of the young set of Olathe back in the seventies when Doc Mahaffie was one of the leaders.
There was a long list of manly young fellows who grew up in Olathe and afterwards came to fill the positions of honor and trust here. There were the Mahaffie boys, the Myer boys, the Bowles, Frank and Charley Peck and many others around whom centered the social life of the community at that time. Doc Mahaffie, handsome, gray eyed, well dressed, and John Mahaffie, his dapper little brother who looked like a fashion plate, were among the leaders and there were the girls, Kate Huntoon, Mollie White and the Williams girls, accomplished, handsome, clever and scores more of pink cheeked sparkling eyed young women.
Rose Williams, one of the prettiest of them, married Johnny White, and Mollie Williams, a pretty school-teacher blessed with brains was chosen by Doc Mahaffie for his bride. She survives hi today in their Oklahoma home.
Doc, like the other young men of his time, finished his school training at Pool’s famous school in Olathe and under that master educator McFarland, in the McFarland & Fishback private school. Like the majority of young men who received their training at these schools, Doc Mahaffie acquired the ground work of education and character that made him a successful man.
There wasn’t much to do in those days and when he finished his work in McFarland & Fishback’s school he went out to the home place on the Kansas City road and farmed two or three years. As the adventurous young chaps of the days did then, he explored new places and looked for new fields, after the home employment.
One day the three brothers, William, John, and George B. (Doc) bought the land at the eastern edge of Olathe belonging to Turpin, the notorious confederate sympathizer who ran the old Avenue hotel during the war. This is the piece of land known in late years as the Livermore land. After farming it a year or two the three brothers sold the tract of 145 acres at $40.00 an acre which made them a profit of $4,000.00. Doc and John together owned half the land. The profit made on this transaction in those days was a wonderful one. Shrewd and bold, as was the spirit of the day, with their capital they bought the Phipps grocery and meat market, then on the corner of that more than a half century later was to become the property of one of the descendants of the Mahaffies, Herbert Julien.
Established in business for himself, it was then that Doc married Mollie Williams. Mollie Williams, who is half sister of Nellie Morgan and Ted Schermerhorn, had a brother, Billy Williams, for many years one of the much loved men of Olathe. Billy had gone to Oklahoma and taken up some land. He died and Doc Mahaffie went down to look after his brother-in-law’s property, took charge of it and proved it up for Billy William’s estate. Thereafter Doc became a citizen of Oklahoma.
From this strong, brainy pioneer stock, there were four children, the oldest, Rose Cobb, now living in Pomona, California. The second is the famous Charles Mahaffie whose brains and hard work won him a Rhodes Scholarship and who graduated from Oxford, a profound lawyer. He is now the adviser of the Interstate Commerce Commission of the United States and is pad a salary of $12,000.00 a year. This boy and his sister, Rose, were born in Olathe. A third child, Bart, died in early manhood in 1919. The fourth child was Beatty, a name which has run in the Mahaffie family for generations. He is now a government chemist station at Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
A word about the other sister, Rose Williams White, is not amiss. Johnny White was killed at his home in Dighton, Kansas, by an automobile. The family had 16 quarter sections of land in that neighborhood which they superintended for years after Mr. White’s death. Rose Williams her boy to her country in the war and he lies under the poppies in France. She has a summer home in Boulder, Colorado, and spends the balance with her time alternately with her children. Mollie, Rose White’s sister, wife of Doc Mahaffie, survives her husband and lives near Hobart, Oklahoma. To her has come, too, honors other than those reflected upon her by the fine career of her children. One has been that of Grand Matron of the Rebekah Order of the State of Oklahoma.
Doc Mahaffie’s life was not spent unprofitably. He had a very large farm at his Oklahoma home, and land in Colorado.
The descendants of Beatty Mahaffie have ever been remarkable for stability of character. The oldest child of Mr. and Mrs. Beatty Mahaffie was Bell Julien who has been dead several years. Effie Carruthers died several years ago. Johnny Mahaffie, who married a sister of Mrs. F. R Ogg, died at his home in Indiana recently. George B. (Doc) Mahaffie, is the fourth child of those who attained majority to pass on. .here remain yet William Mahaffie, the earliest living citizen of Olathe, Frank of Olathe Township and Miss Ella Mahaffie, one of the finest of Kansas teachers.
Doc Mahaffie was born in August 1855, in Jasper County, Indiana. His funeral occurred Tuesday at three P. M. July 9, 1931. So esteemed was Doc Mahaffie by those who knew him that the people of the entire district attended to pay the last tribute of respect to a strong and upright man.
His death was unexpected. It was quite similar to the death of his brother, John, which occurred recently. Mrs. Mahaffie was suffering from neuritis so he took her to the hospital in Oklahoma City for treatment. He returned home and on Thursday and Friday directed the threshing of his crop. Sunday morning he told Mrs. Mahaffie he was very sick. She tried to call the doctor but was unable to do so by phone and called a neighbor to get the doctor. When she returned to her husband she found he had tried to rise and dress himself, evidently wishing to assist her in some way, and had fallen quietly into the sleep of perpetual peace.
