"PARTLOW, WILLIAM DEMPSEY, physician and third superintendent of the Alabama insane hospitals, was born February 4, 1877, at Ashville, St. Clair County; son of David Alonzo and Modena Catherine (Beason) Partlow, the former born at Ashville, where he made his home, and for two last years of the War of Secession was a private in the C. S. Army; grandson of Dempsey Winburn and Mary (Montgomery) Partlow, of South Carolina, who removed in 1820 to Alabama and of William Spruell and Julia Ann Deerman, the former of whom came, in boyhood, from Abbeville District, S. C., to Ashville. He obtained early education in the public school at Ashville, and in 1896 finished the course at St. Clair college, now Ashville high school. On April 3, 1901 he graduated in the medical department of the University of Alabama, delivering the valedictory for his class. He was a physician in the Bryce hospital at Tuscaloosa for the insane from graduation to October 1, 1908, when he was appointed assistant superintendent of the hospital, and this position he held until his election in 1919 as the successor to Dr. James T. Searcy. He has been twice president of the Tuscaloosa County medical society, is a member and a counsellor of the Medical association of Alabama, and orator of the association in 1909; a member of the American medical association, a member of the American medico- psychological association, and a member of the National geographic society. He is a Methodist. He has written a number of papers and essays, including "Degeneracy," "Value of employment and its relation to. nervous and mental diseases," "Medicine and sociologyTheir relation in the past and present." Married: April 26, 1905, in Birmingham, to Margaret Cummings, daughter of James Thomas and Margaret (Cummings) Nixon, of that city. Children: 1. William Dempsey, jr.; 2. Margaret Cummings; 3. Nixon Beason. Residence: Tuscaloosa."

FROM: History of Alabama and Alabama Biography by Thomas McAdory Owen.