My grandfather grew up poor in Appalachia but had a photographic memory. He memorized the Merck manual. He would embarrass you in Scrabble since he knew the entire Oxford unabridged dictionary. He worked his way through college and medical school by taking notes for the wealthy students. After graduation at that time(1930’s) you had to buy into a medical practice which he didn’t have the money to do.
He wound up serving as a doctor for the Arctic airbase construction teams doing frostbite amputations. Once upon returning in their ship they were torpedoed and had to jump from their transport onto a destroyer that came up for a rescue. Due to the pitching seas about half of them broke bones in the jump. He dutifully set everyone’s broken bones including his own.
When the coal mines were federalized he was sent in to be the first medically trained doctor the miners had(Ones before were barber college doctors). Black lung was rampant.
After the war he moved down to Oak Ridge because since it had been a secret city there were no established medical practices. He became an ER surgeon and had a general practice. He saw everything semi rural medicine has to offer. Malnutrition, car wrecks, a woman who couldn’t hear because of the roach eggs in her ears, everything. Had office hours on Saturdays for the miners to come in on their days off.
The ER work also included botched abortions. They were illegal then but happened anyway. He’s been dead a long time but told me this story when I was young visiting. He had retired by that point. He would sit in a lazy boy, watch golf, and drink jack daniels all day eventually passing out and then wake up from a nightmare. I had asked him why he had nightmares and if it had anything to do with his legs being gone(the drinking caused his diabetes to force amputations). He said the following.
He drank so he could sleep. Of all the things he had seen in his life and 40 year career in medicine, poverty in Appalachia, frostbite, half a ship of broken bones, black lung, car wreck victims the botched abortions were the ones that caused his nightmares.
He said they would bring the young women in nearly always screaming, terrified and bleeding profusely. They would put her under general anesthesia and go to work. He said there were only two results. 1. She would survive and he would tell her, a young woman, she would never have children. In that day that also meant she probably wouldn’t ever get married either. 2. He would walk out to a waiting room where he would tell her clueless parents their daughter was dead. It was a small town so he knew everyone.
He had a photographic memory so he remembered every detail.
He was a Conservative Baptist who believed in legal and safe abortion.
Edit: Thank you rec list and the kind comments. I especially appreciate the doctors and nurses sharing their similar stories. I imagine it’s difficult to remember. I hope you share your personal experience with people. I know it was important in my life to hear my grandfather say it.
