A literary reflection for Father’s Day

I often state personal views in my columns for the Literacy Council, about literacy, the causes of illiteracy, about books we are reading in the People’s College. But I have tried not to bring my personal life into them. However, as we approach Father’s Day, I find myself thinking even more about my father’s life and his influence on me. So, pardon me if I share some thoughts about him, thoughts which I think have some relevancy for issues of literacy.

My father was born in 1910, raised in a small, rural town in south Georgia. There were seven in his high school class. At 12, he began working in the local drug store, before and after school, and during the summer. He graduated at 16, as was the custom then, and worked full time in the drug store to make money for college. The owner wanted him to dispense drugs, so in January of 1927 he went to the Struby School of Pharmacy in Macon for a short course to prepare for the state exam. Passing it was the only requirement to be a licensed druggist. In May of 1927 he went to Atlanta to take the exam and passed. He was 17. The next year the Georgia legislature passed a law that one had to be 21 to be licensed. At some point, the doctor who had his office in the back of the drug store began asking my father to accompany him on visits to patients out in the countryside. He would assist in any way he was asked. He decided he wanted to be a doctor so, after saving for two years, he enrolled in pre-med at the University of Georgia. He worked for a drug store there but still had to drop out after his junior year to earn money for his last year. He graduated in 1933. He enrolled at Emory University School of Medicine in the fall. He graduated in 1937 and did his internship and two-year residency in surgery at Grady Hospital in Atlanta. He was then drafted and spent five years in the Army at various hospitals, all stateside. He was chief of orthopedics at Fort McPherson in Atlanta when he was discharged. He opened a practice in general surgery in downtown Atlanta in 1946.

I have early memories of Dad frequently getting up during the night to go out on a call. He had patients at three area hospitals – including Hughes Spalding, which was a hospital for black patients. He also was on call for the Southern Railroad and I remember him or maybe my mother saying that when the railroad called it was always serious. I also remember not everyone could pay and would sometimes give him vegetables or some other item.

At some point in my childhood, I can’t remember how old, I began to go with him to his office on some Saturdays, and on trips to the hospitals in early evenings. Sometimes I would walk with him as he made his rounds, sometimes I would sit in the car, and, at Crawford Long Hospital, sometimes he would leave me in the Doctor’s lounge – I still have a clear memory of that room. When I went with him to his office I would walk around the halls of the building, up and down the steps, then wander outside, exploring downtown Atlanta. When I was old enough, I would catch the bus for the fifteen-minute trip down Peachtree Street to his office. He had season tickets to Georgia Tech football games and on those days we would have lunch at the Majestic Grill or The Varsity, and then walk on to Grant Field.

He had a solo practice so we rarely went on vacations. We lived in a modest house. I did not know until I grew up that doctors often make quite a bit of money. I just knew that my father had wanted to be a doctor since his teens, worked all the time, was constantly on call, and treated people regardless of ability to pay, Black and white. These lessons, that you work hard, do your best, and treat people without prejudice were what he imparted to me. He was quiet, not a brooding silence, just a kind of modest personality which meant he didn’t reveal much of himself through words. But his actions still speak loudly to me.

After he died, I took possession of a stack of papers clipped on a board, each describing an operation. Regrettably, I never really went through them. When our house burned in 2011, they burned. I also had kept a small file box with index cards listing patient names, addresses, and race on them, but not their condition or treatment. This box was in the attic at the time of the fire and in the days after, some of the cards floated out into the yard from the attic, about twenty-five of them. They drifted down like leaves – floating, diving, spinning, coming to rest in a bush, the brick walkway, or the grass – each one a life, unknown to me but connected to me by my father. These people were now here in my yard by chance, escaping the fire that consumed the other cards, and everything else in the attic, through some act of physics, of heat, or air currents. I saw no mystical element in this but certainly it was poignant.

I wish I knew more about these patients and how he interacted with them and what he did for them. Once in his office through a door slightly ajar I saw a patient, his arm outstretched on a metal tray. My father was amputating a finger. I don’t know whether this was railroad related or not. Maybe this man’s name was on one of these cards. One card was Louise Robertson. Perhaps I saw her post-surgery when I was tagging along on my father’s rounds, my child’s mind not thinking about the meaning of these visits, that someone had been sick or injured or required surgery and my father was following up. Another card was Thomas Stone. Perhaps an unemployed laborer before Medicaid, unable to pay for an appendectomy or hernia operation. Maybe he was a person I saw in the waiting room. I don’t know why he or the others came to my father, what he did for them, what kinds of lives they had. He and they are gone, beyond questioning.

I had beseeched him when he was around 70 to write about his life. I knew enough to realize it was an interesting story. The details above about his childhood and journey to medicine come from the short autobiography he wrote. I encouraged him to add more detail and some reflection but he never did. So I am left with what he did write, and the patient cards, and the good memories of the two of us. I hope that some of him is reflected in my approach to life and what I have done. His life was much more than I will ever know which seems true of all of us – we are more than the sum of the memories people have of us. That’s why – to end with a literacy perspective – we should all write our stories or we should interview others to record their stories. We need to leave as much of ourselves behind as we can. Otherwise, we leave too many unanswered questions. Thanks for indulging these personal reflections.

Until next time, Happy Reading