February 7, 1945

February 7, 1945

949 W 12th St

San Pedro, Calif

Dear Father, Mother and the rest of the folks at home,

Calif has turned out a very warm day today — the warmest we have had for a long time. It must have been up to between 70 or 80°F but I didn’t look to see. It was also clear most of the day. It was the kind of a day that makes you feel sort of lazy but I managed to get a fair amount of work done anyway. Monday and Tuesday it almost looked as tho it might rain but it didn’t. Both days I assumed it wouldn’t and didn’t wear my raincoat, but such action was really too optimistic altho o.k. this time.

Last night was Luther League. It wasn’t too good a meeting. I am amazed sometimes how stupid people are. One boy in high school had brought his algebra book along and another boy (about 20 or so who has been out of high school for awhile) was working a problem for him. He took 15 minutes to do it and covered a whole sheet of paper with calculations when 2 lines would have sufficed. I don’t want to seem stuck-up but I think I am wasting my time when I associate with such people. Well, anyway the people who were supposed to be on the program showed up rather absently so the meeting didn’t amount to much.

I am going to have to go to a dentist pretty soon. I think another wisdom tooth is coming thru. I have also examined my teeth as well as I can in the mirror and there is another tooth that needs some filling. As soon as I can locate a good dentist I shall try to get an appointment. Most dentists here are false-teeth fiends whose one desire is to equip you with them, so it is best to avoid them. Their work other than pulling of teeth is poorly done. I’d thought some of waiting till I got home on vacation but that seem rather far off yet.

My cold has improved somewhat but it still hangs on. I think I have had more colds this winter than I have ever hd before — a commentary on California.

My work continues almost as usual.

The Gowrie News came today as it usually does on the average. Altho I read it fairly thoroly I must have missed the item about Vernon S. being injured, because I can’t recall reading of it.

I am duly complimented by being informed of the opinion that Ann Marie resembles me. It arouses my interest all the further in how she looks now, now that my vanity is also involved.

with love

C.P.

P.S. I got to use up these envelopes so you’ll be getting them for awhile.

More Medical Matters

Later in the summer of the same year my mother had her operation for goiter. I think this condition was brought forcefully to her attention by Dr. Studebaker during one or more of the post-hospital visits to him to check on the healing of the cuts on my abdomen. Her convalescence was slower than mine and we had a “hired girl” for several months as I recall. Her name was Sigrid Anderson, she lived in with us, did pretty much everything from cooking to housework, and I suppose worked 12 to 14 hours each day. She had one day off — her boyfriend would come around late Saturday afternoon and she would return about the same time Sunday evening.

My mother also had an operation for gallstones, I think sometime during the war years. By then I was working in California so I don’t know the details, but I think the operation occurred during the summer. Anyway Vivian returned to help out during the post-operative period. Dr. Studebaker had retired by then. I don’t know who the surgeon was.

My appendicitis and my mother’s goiter operation came of course at a time of financial difficulties for the family. I really don’t know how these expenses were handled, except that the doctor’s (Studebaker’s) fees were delayed and he reduced the charges to half of his normal fees. How the hospital costs were handled I have no really good information but I have the faint recollection that my grandmother out of her own funds handled the costs of employing Sigrid Anderson — which were at the munificent level of $3/week. It is hard for me to credit that recollection but I am fairly certain it is correct.

Whereas my mother had at least four experiences in a hospital, Marold’s birth, her goiter and gall bladder operations and her final stay at the time of her death, my father had only one stay in a hospital. As in my mother’s case he died in the Lutheran hospital in Fort Dodge. My mother apparently died of a heart attack. She had just bathed and while no one was in attendance her heart just stopped. I don’t really know what my father died of. I do know that his death was preceded by a very high temperature that had he survived at the time might have made his mental capacities questionable afterward.

A Brush with Mortality

When Dr. Erickson died or retired (the two events may have coincided) his practice was sold to Dr. Borgen whom my mother called to see me when I had my ruptured appendix in 1934. I don’t have too clear a recollection of the night before Dr. Borgen came out to the farm but I know I was feeling pretty awful. Actually the discomfort had eased towards morning and this was interpreted subsequently as indicating that the appendix had ruptured.

It was the spring of the Dust Bowl in the southern plains and this dust had blown north and was pervasively settled on and in everything in the house. Anyway the house was quite dusty inside and my mother had sort of cleared a path for Dr. Borgen through the east door, the dining room, the parlor, up the stairs, along the hall and into the bedroom occupied by me and Vincent where I was lying on the bed. After Dr. Borgen had made his diagnosis he asked my mother where he could wash his hands and my mother was mortified as she had not seen this as likely to occur and the bathroom was a mess.

The surgeon was Dr. Studebaker, the same doctor who had been in attendance at Verner’s birth. For four or five days after the operation I was quite sick and is understand it was pretty much touch and go whether or not I would survive. During this first few days I was attended by a special nurse, around the clock, and I suppose this corresponded to intensive care at the time. This nurse, a Miss Bang (who actually was engaged to be married to one of my father’s co-workers at the county treasurer’s office) had heard of a device developed by a Wallenstein (doctor?) which could be used to elutriate out the contents of a stomach. Sort of like a stomach pump except that the operation was continuous. I guess the water came in through one tube and the stomach contents were sucked out through the other. I think these tubes came in through my mouth but I’m not sure now.

Anyway the device worked and my mother at least credited its use for my survival. Those were the days before antibiotics or even sulfa drugs, so either you survived on your own or you didn’t. I was discharged from the hospital after eleven days. By then I suppose the two discharge tubes through the two incisions on my abdomen had been removed. I don’t recall when the stitches were finally removed. My recovery from that point on was rapid but I was restricted from vigorous physical activity for some moths until the incisions were fully knit again. At the pre-induction physical I had during WWII I recall the examining doctor looking at the scars and commenting on them.

Doctors and Medical Care

During my early days in Gowrie there were two doctors — Erickson and Lundvick. I think my parents used the services of Lundvick at first but at the birth of one of the older children my mother was disenchanted by his lack of attention or competence and may have reverted to Erickson. Rumor had it that Lundvick was addicted to the use of alcohol, although those were Prohibition days and I don’t know where his supply would have been. [I recently read an excellent account of Prohibition — “Last Call: The Rise and Fall of Prohibition” by Daniel Okrent. In it, he discusses the various loopholes by which people could acquire alcohol. One loophole allowed doctors to prescribe “medicinal” alcohol. —LRS]

Erickson was no prize either. He was quite old and had lost whatever competence he might have once had over the years. During the period in the late 1930s and early 1940s when my aunt Ruth was ill with whatever ailed her (it was never clear to me what she had but I suspect it was some sort of inoperable cancer), she either went to Dr. Waddell in Paton or to a doctor in Fort Dodge. I recall driving her to both places, using uncle Carl’s old blue Essex.

At one time when my grandmother was having her gall bladder trouble, the family first called on old Dr. Erickson to diagnose her difficulty but when it became obvious that he did not know what was going on and my grandmother’s condition was getting worse, someone in the family called Dr. Waddell and when he came to the house (doctors made house calls as a rather usual thing in those days) he immediately recognized the symptoms and ordered her to Fort Dodge for immediate surgery.

When Verner was born there were complications and Dr. Studebaker came from Fort Dodge to Gowrie to assist in the birth. I don’t know how he was selected. In the birth it was necessary for one of Verner’s legs to be broken and I dimly recall seeing the cast. I certainly recall the actual day — the most vivid recollection though is of Studebaker’s car which was a rather grand one in my child’s eyes. Perhaps because of my mother’s difficulties with the birth of Verner she went to the hospital when Marold was born. I think there was a surgery associated with the birth — perhaps she had her tubes “tied” but that is pure speculation on my part.

Marold was the only one of the children born in a hospital, all the other five children were born at home. Again I have some recollection of the birth, this time it is the recalling of a trip to Fort Dodge to the hospital. But I can only remember sitting in the car outside the hospital, not being inside to see either my mother or Marold. At that time there was only the one hospital in Fort Dodge, the Mercy hospital operated by the Catholic church. The Lutheran hospital was constructed sometime in the early 1930s and currently the two hospitals are under some kind of coordinated management.

My uncle Carl at the time the Lutheran hospital was built made a large enough contribution so that he was entitled to have the use of the hospital any time in his lifetime. He took advantage of this when he decided to have his hemorrhoids taken care of, I am told.

Of Dentists and Dentures

Gowrie had one dentist, Herman Johnson, and I recall having some dental work done by him (his office was upstairs in one of the stores along the south side of the main street of the town, perhaps the Gowrie Savings Bank or the Bowman drug store). Clarice I believe had some teeth braces for a while, but not too effectively as she had an eye tooth that was never correctly aligned as an adult.

Dental work was one of the casualties of the Depression years and except for occasional efforts by my mother to get us to brush our teeth, our teeth received little attention. Until I was in my late twenties I never gave my teeth much attention either but then there were symptoms of toothache and decay and I started to pay some attention to them. I inquired at the first aid department at Shell for a recommendation and started going to a Dr. Hudson. When I started with him, I think he had just started practicing on Bancroft Avenue in Berkeley just below the intersection with Telegraph Avenue. He operated with one assistant who acted as a receptionist or dental assistant whenever needed. Unlike dentists nowadays (at least those we use here in Ashland) he did all the teeth cleaning, X-ray taking, etc. as well as the more professional dental services. Later on he moved to more elegant quarters down on Telegraph Avenue a ways. He proved to be an excellent dentist, though he was not particularly gentle at times.

By the time of my marriage I had had most of the neglected dental work done and at Hudson’s suggestion the work was all gold crowns or inlays. From that time on it was mostly an annual cleaning though there may had been occasional inlay work. As an indication of the quality of his work only one tooth that he put a crown on gave trouble at a later date. This tooth was probably dead and the crown came loose while we were on a trip through Houston in 1980. I had some emergency repair there and when we got back to Ashland the dentist here did a root canal and put on a new crown.

Hudson had either an English or possible an Australian background. His hobby was acting as the unpaid coach of the California rugby team, at least I think he was unpaid. I once referred to the sport as soccer and I was informed in no uncertain terms that soccer was not the same as rugby. It often happened that when I was in the dental chair he would be called to the phone, obviously on rugby matters. The conversations could be quite lengthy at times. Meanwhile I was sitting with dental equipment in my mouth.

Hudson was older than I — in the Cal monthly [magazine] that Jean gets as a lifetime member of the Cal alumni association, there was an article a year or so ago (2002–2004) that reported his death and remarked on his days as the rugby coach. During his tenure as coach the Cal team was highly successful.

While I am on the subject of teeth I want to add a few random recollections. I can see for example my father vigorously brushing his teeth during the time we were living on the farm. He would get a cup with salt water in it and with his toothbrush go outside the house on the rear lawn and go to it. I don’t think he brushed his teeth with any regularity however. But he and my mother eventually had dentures, first my mother and then my father. I think this was after I left home at least in the case of my father. Wherever he got his false teeth, they did not fit too well and when he was eating you could hear them clicking against each other.

It seems to me that my sister Clarice also had false teeth but I am not sure. My grandmother Peterson had false teeth and the story is that when she decided to get them, she had her remaining teeth extracted without anesthesia in the lobby of one of the hotels in Gowrie. Perhaps the dentist was an individual traveling from one town to the next, plying his trade as he went. In a way I find the story a little hard to believe but I have no specific reason for discounting it.

Another recollection I have from a time much later in my life, after our retirement to Ashland. We came acquainted with a retired couple, Albert and Gladys Ernst. Albert had false teeth but didn’t like to have them in his mouth except when he was eating. So he would put them into his mouth before a meal and take them out afterward. He was very adept at doing this so even if you were watching closely it was virtually impossible to see the actual transfer, either in or out. We had a considerable contact with the Ernsts over a period of years, including dinners at the church we both attended and dinners during visits in our respective homes — in all of these there was only once when I thought that I caught Albert in moving his teeth, either in or out, but even then I was not really sure. I don’t suppose that I would have ever known about Albert’s practice had it not been that Gladys confided to Jean about it.