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Dr. Waddell, veterinarian,
entrepreneur, leader, husband, father, researcher, student, and resident of Kaa’awa on the eastern shore of Oahu, Hawaii,
at 97 years of age is probably the oldest living buffalo soldier now that Sgt. Mathews is deceased.
Dr. Waddell was born
in 1908, the son of a Virginia horse driver. He says he always enjoyed working with horses and mules and bonded
with them easily. His father had a horse named Charlie which he used to deliver shoes. As a teenager, Dr. Waddell spent summers
working as a porch boy, arranging chairs and picking up lost items at the Homestead Hotel in Hot Springs, Virginia. He met many famous people during
his employment including Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Mrs. A.M. Bonds who smoothed the way for his admission to the University
of Pennsylvania School of Veterinary Medicine. He says “I was the only black member of the veterinary class, but I held
my own and graduated.” In 1935, Dr. Waddell became one of the first black veterinarians to graduate from the University
of Pennsylvania Veterinary School and he was also the first black man to pass the state board in veterinary medicine in Pennsylvania. Dr. Waddell collaborated with George Washington Carver,
the famed botanist from September 1935 to Carver’s death in 1943. Together, they researched the medical uses of peanut
oil. Dr. Waddell also worked in private practice until World War II. He had the opportunity to meet Roosevelt again when he
accompanied George Washington Carver to the future president’s Georgia
retreat where they massaged Roosevelt with peanut oil to help relieve the discomfort of the
man’s paralysis. In 1938, Dr. Waddell co-founded the school of Veterinary Medicine at Tuskegee, Alabama. The school opened in 1945. He watched the first class graduate in 1949.
As
a lieutenant in the U.S. Army’s 9th Cavalry, 5th Brigade during World War II, he served in Africa and Italy in 1943 and 1944 and oversaw the care of 10,000 horses as well as many mules.
In 1944, Dr. Waddell’s brigade was carrying food and supplies to troops in North Africa
when German forces shot his mule. The impact knocked Dr. Waddell off his mount and the enemy shot at him as he was tending
to his injured mule. Dr. Waddell suffered a wound to his neck and spent 90 days in a field hospital in North
Africa before returning to active duty with his troops.
Dr. Waddell’s wife, Lottie Young Waddell
died in 1989. Today, he lives with his daughter, Dr. Kathryn Waddell Takara and accepts invitations to give talks on his adventures.
Dr. Waddell has been assigned an Active Duty Army Sergeant as an aide-de-camp by the United States Army.
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