James Addison Hockaday 1892-1966
James A. Hockaday, physician, was born on January 23, 1892, at Plattsburg, Missouri, the son of James Addison and Nana (Elliott) Hockaday. He attended schools at Holt, Missouri, and the University of Missouri at Kansas City; he received his medical degree from the University Medical College of Kansas City in 1913. After serving in the medical corps during World War I he moved his family to Port Isabel, Texas. He married Clara Achterberg in Kansas City, Missouri, in 1913. She died in 1915; their only child, a son, died at age fifteen. In 1917 Hockaday married Ruby Dietz, with whom he had two more sons. He married Beulah Lee Rankin in 1935. She died in 1937, and on August 8, 1939, he married Jimmie Lee Jordan, with whom he had two sons. Hockaday was president of the Cameron-Willacy County Medical Society, physician and surgeon for the Missouri Pacific lines for many years, a member of the "Fifty Year Club of Physicians," and mayor of Port Isabel (1946-47, 1956-66). He was a founder and lifetime director of the Texas International Fishing Tournament and was recognized for his interest in oceanography, ornithology, taxidermy, and archeology-especially with respect to the life and history of the area in which he lived. He was a member of the Texas State Historical Association, the Texas Historical Foundation, and the Cameron County Historical Survey committee; he was a president and lifetime board member of the Lower Rio Grande Valley Historical Society. At the time of his death he had almost completed drafts for two books, one a history of Port Isabel and the other on Indians of the lower Rio Grande valley. His files of historical data were included in a memorial library in Port Isabel. He died on May 10, 1966, in Brownsville and was given a military burial at Port Isabel.BIBLIOGRAPHY: Texas State Journal of Medicine, July 1966. Who's Who
in the South and Southwest, Vol. 5.
Verna J. McKenna
Source: The Texas State Historical Association Handbook of Texas Online.