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(Pictured above: Descendants of Dr. Sherrill at the portrait dedication at Iredell Memorial Hospital.)

The portrait of a prominent and beloved physician in Iredell County has a new place of honor at Iredell Memorial Hospital. On Tuesday, May 8, hospital officials dedicated a portrait of Dr. Coite Long Sherrill with several of his descendants in attendance.

Dr. Sherrill was born in 1889 in Tyler, Texas and later moved with his family to Catawba, North Carolina. He entered the medical profession under the tutelage of his uncle, Dr. Henry F. Long, who founded the renowned H.F. Long Hospital in Statesville. Dr. Long's portrait also hangs inside Iredell Memorial Hospital.
Sherrill came to Statesville to practice medicine two years before the start of WWI. During the war, he served overseas as a Lieutenant Colonel in the Medical Corps. After he was discharged, he returned to Statesville and became the head of the medical staff at H.F. Long Hospital until his sudden death from a heart attack in 1937. An excerpt from one obituary reads "in the death of Dr. Sherrill, Statesville has not only lost an eminent physician and surgeon, we have lost a loyal citizen and beloved friend."

His surviving relatives commissioned the portrait of Dr. Sherrill, which will hang in the hallway of the hospital outside the administrative offices alongside other prominent physicians and past leaders at Iredell Memorial. Descendants of Dr. Sherrill attending the dedication include his two surviving children, Marianna Steele and William Sherrill; his daughter-in-law, Eaton Sherrill; four of his grandchildren, David Steele, Betsy King, Bill Sherrill and his wife Malinda, and Mary Mallory and her husband James.