My new Observer series — coming soon!

In The Works

I’ve recently completed the first article in my new “Doctoring in Early Pacific County” series for the Chinook Observer.  Watch for it!

Like my last series about Pioneer Schools, the doctoring series has been prompted by some of our major concerns during the pandemic.  It seemed to me that as we began to break new ground with virtual schooling at all educational levels, it might be interesting to look at how far we’ve come (or perhaps not) education-wise in the last 170 years here on the Western Edge.  It was great fun to research and write about the one-room-schools, the valiant teachers who taught in them, and the obstacles that our forebears overcame to get an education.  I hope readers got as much enjoyment from reading the articles as I did in writing them.

Image from the Internet

The doctoring series is even more interesting in some ways, perhaps because there have been such strides in medicine during that same 170-year time period.  It’s hard to believe that many of the diagnostic tools such as X-rays and medicines such as penicillin didn’t come into use for generations after our pioneer ancestors were carving out their homes in this wilderness of early Pacific County.  And yet, they endured and recovered from many an illness or accident without benefit of “modern medicine” or hospitals or even doctors.

The Sou’wester

I’m so grateful that our forebears sometimes wrote of their “doctoring” experiences and that the Pacific County Historical Society’s quarterly magazine, the Sou’wester, has published these accounts over the years.  As you might expect, however, the most difficult part of my research, so far, is finding illustrations.  Schoolhouses were easy.  Sick rooms… not so much.

 

 

One Response to “My new Observer series — coming soon!”

  1. Ann Driscoll says:

    Hello Sydney,
    I think you are going to be writing about doctors. My information is from Oregon. In my great-aunt Lena’s book she says that her mother wanted her son (my great-uncle Linn) to be a doctor and named him after Dr. Linn who Linn County, Oregon was named for. Linn Tartar did become a doctor in Corvallis and left his estate to Oregon State College. My brother (John Linn) was named for him. My mother’s cousin Ann’s husband was also a doctor (Noble Reid). My father consulted with them when a family member wasn’t going to make it. They advised him that if anyone could save her it would be Virginia Mason in Seattle. He chartered (Fly with Freddy) to fly to Boeing Field where they had an ambulance waiting to take her to the emergency room.

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