People, Locations, Episodes

Sat, 10.20.186620

Valdo Turner, Physician born.

Valdo Turner

*The birth of Valdo Turner is celebrated on this date in 1866. He was a Black doctor.

Valdo Turner was from Tennessee; he had seven siblings. Turner graduated from Meharry Medical College in 1898 and relocated to St. Paul, Minnesota. He married Clara Elizabeth Turner in 1918 in St. Paul, Minnesota. They had one daughter: Valdora Frazer Faggett Spaulding. 

His medical practice was at 27 East Seventh Street, St. Paul. On April 26, 1918, Dr. Valdo Turner headed the medical corps of Military companies C and D formed in Minneapolis for the state's national guard. He participated in fraternal, civic, and civil rights organizations; he was one of Minnesota's founders of the NAACP.

Turner was also an abortionist, defended by Fred McGhee, acquitted in 1910, and charged again in 1928. The second judge allowed him to leave the state rather than face prison. Valdo Turner passed away in Tennessee in 1948, at age 81, but was buried in Maplewood, MN.

To become a doctor

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