Submitted by the Girard Historical Society
Henry and Susan Banhisel’s second daughter Clara married her school sweetheart, William Carey (W.C.) Bunts in 1858. W.C. raised a unit in the Civil War and served until 1866. He took his family to Cleveland after the War to establish his law practice. Unfortunately, he’d contracted a disease during the war which claimed his life in 1874, leaving Clara a widow with five children. She sent her second son, Frank E. to Girard to live with her parents.
Frank attended Girard High School and should have graduated in 1881, but he got an appointment to Annapolis before the school year ended. After graduation, he served his midshipman year. The U.S. had no suitable ship for him to serve. He returned to Cleveland and went to medical school at Western Reserve University, graduating in 1886. After interning at St. Vincent Charity Hospital in Cleveland, he entered the office of Dr. Frank J. Weid. It was there he met Dr. George Crile.
The two had big plans for a clinic. Their plans were interrupted by the Spanish-American War. Bunts served as surgeon to the First Ohio Volunteer Cavalry Unit of the Ohio National Guard.
Eventually the two teamed up with two others to found the Cleveland Clinic in 1921.