WISCONSIN: Country Doctor

It had been 30 years. Driving through the jack-pine country of northern Wisconsin on his calls, Doc MacKinnon reflected: it had seemed much shorter than that. In the long country-doctor days and broken nights of George Elliott MacKinnon, now 60, he had brought hundreds —thousands—of children into life. Many a Finnish logger had come to his office in little (pop. 452) Prentice, Wis. to be patched up after a knife fight. There had been fevers, croups, contagions, the flu epidemic of 1919, when Doc was out on the drifted roads for eight subzero days & nights, .with a steaming horse pulling his sleigh and a fresh animal trotting behind. On his lonely rides Doc had worn out the sleigh, a buggy, a snowmobile, a Chewy, a Star and 15 Fords.

Now what had come over Prentice, Doc wondered? On the street, last week, people kept telling him, “Please don’t have any babies on Thursday.” On Wednesday his wife insisted that he get his calls all cleaned up. The next morning (after getting up at 5 to deliver baby No. 2,891) he discovered why: it was “MacKinnon Day” in Prentice.

Parade on Main Street. By early forenoon 2,500 people had crowded into town and Doc MacKinnon was standing in a reviewing stand watching 450 of his “babies” march past, with stork-decorated floats, and a band. After that he was presented with a shiny 1946 Ford, and led before a microphone.

“I knew you were about to blackmail me someway,” he said, “but I didn’t know just how.” Then his voice choked up and that was the end of his speech.

But MacKinnon Day was just beginning. The Lutheran Ladies’ Aid gave a smörgäsbord. The Monday Study Club gave a reception. School was closed and children gathered at the Village Hall, presented the Doc with a 21-jewel Hamilton watch and sang:

“. . . of his skill we love to tell;

Doc MacKinnon makes you well.”

That night there was a Community Club dinner in the Lutheran Church. Just as it ended Doc got an emergency call; Earl Ames over in Ogema asked him to come right away. Everybody in town went to the town hall for the evening program, anyhow. The school principal made a talk. Mrs. Tyler of Tomasawaka was introduced as the “Songbird of the North” and sang If I Had My Way. The crowd sang too. They were still there at 11 o’clock when Doc got back to report: “The mother nearly died, the baby nearly died, I nearly died, but we all lived. The baby was blue and I had to dip him in hot and cold water.”

While everyone applauded, Doc was handed a check for $1,300 drawn on the State Bank of Phillips. Some people thought he looked a little tired when the gathering broke up. But he was up early again, next morning. As usual, he had plenty of calls to make.