Joseph Otto was born and raised in the Vermillion Parish area around Lake Peigneur the son of Odra Emmanuel Segura and Emethilde Broussard. According to an article in the Abbevile Meridional, he graduated from Abbeville High School in 1906. After finishing medical school at Tulane University Medical School he attended Harvard Medical School in 1910 where he specialized in pediatrics. During a school break Mabel Weston came to Louisiana with a friend from New Iberia, Iberia Parish, Louisiana. She and Joseph Otto met and were later married at Jesuit Church in New Orleans March 17, 1910.

He graduated from Tulane Medical School in 1909 and a year at Harvard Medical School in 1910 specializing in pediatrics. He initially began the practice of medicine at the Abbeville Hospital in Vermillion Parish, Louisiana. He then set up practice in Biloxi, Mississippi for a year, but moved to Houston, Texas and practiced there until the outbreak of World War I in 1918. He joined the US Army Medical Corps and was stationed at Runnie Mead, England for 2-1/2 years, until the war was over. The family spent this time in Logtown, Hancock County, Mississippi living with the Weston family.

Upon his return from the war in 1919, he became associated with the Lamar Life Insurance Company in Jackson, Mississippi as the Medical Director. He became Vice President in 1931; and from 1932 to 1939 he was also the Agency Director. He was a member of the board for more that 20 years.

Joseph Otto Segura died while visiting his family in Erath, Vermillion Parish, Louisiana on 26 October 1946 at 12:10 A.M. at the age of 59. He died in the Abbeville Hospital where he started his medical career. Services were held on 28 October 1946 at St. Peter’s Catholic Church in Jackson, Hinds County, Mississippi. Monsignor William J. Leech officiated with internment at 9:30 A.M. in the Lakewood Memorial Park near Jackson, Hinds County, Mississippi.

His children were Horatio Weston Segura and Dorothy Heloise Segura.