Menu
Early days in McCook -- the doctors
Monday, June 29, 2015
Dr. Z.L. Kay
One of the early doctors to McCook, though certainly not the first, was Dr. Bryan Bennett Davis, who came in 1885. Dr. Davis was a rare individual, of exceptional talent as a physician, as well as a gifted organizer, both for McCook and the Medical Community of the area. Though he only stayed eight years in McCook, he left a great legacy. A native of Richardson County in Nebraska, Dr. Davis had been a Phi Beta Kappa at the University of Nebraska, and had just recently graduated from the New York Poly Clinic when he arrived in McCook. Because he was single when he arrived, we have a priceless history of life in those early days through the letters he wrote to his fiancé, which she dutifully kept and shared.
Dr. Davis, as the 5th doctor in McCook, suffered through those early first months of practice -- recording that his total income for the month of July, 1885 amounted to $79. Soon his income was supplemented by his salary as Surgeon of the Burlington Railroad. Over time his roster of paying patients grew, but he still found time to serve as Regent for the University of Nebraska and to serve on the faculty of that institution; he organized the committee for a McCook Public Library; he was a charter member of the McCook Investment Company; he worked on the Red Willow County Fair Race Committee; he promoted an active Medical Society of Doctors of SW Nebr.; he built an office and, just in time for his bride, who arrived in 1887, he built a new home across the street from Main Street Park (Norris Park) -- total cost for the new home, $2,475.
Dr. Davis regularly attended patients in Culbertson, Benkelman, Cambridge, and Arapahoe, thanks to the frequency of local trains, which made trips to and from those cities several times a day. To visit patients in towns off the RR main line, like Danbury and Lebanon, and for house calls into rural areas there was his buggy and trusted horse (who knew the way home while Dr. Davis slept).
Dr. Bryan Bennett Davis
Dr. Davis left McCook in 1892, when he accepted a position as Professor of Surgical Pathology at the Omaha Medical College (now a part of the University of Nebraska system). In subsequent years he was Chief Surgeon at several Omaha Hospitals. He was President of the State, County, and Western Surgical Associations, and the author of numerous medical papers, which received widespread acclaim. Dr. Davis' son, Herbert followed his father as a Surgeon, as did his grandson, John, who also became a prominent Omaha Surgeon.
Dr. Z.L Kay came to McCook in 1884, from Kentucky. His practice spanned five decades, until his death in 1934. When he died the Gazette eulogized him, calling him the "most beloved man in McCook...his ability and noble character soon won for him an extensive practice. Early settlers recalled how he overrode all the obstacle of the frontier to alleviate pain and suffering. He was an ingenious person, and invented and improved methods and instruments, where they were lacking in those early days."
It was estimated that Dr. Kay had delivered more than 3,000 babies -- no one kept track of the countless surgeries, diphtheria cases or mumps and chicken pox.
Dr. Kay was the longtime chairman of the local Sanity Board, and was said to have "remarkably shrewd insight for a man who had little formal training in psychology."
Dr. Kay was an early advocate of healthy life practices. He preached to all of his patients on the evils of tobacco and being overweight. That did not stop him, personally, from smoking big black cigars, or deter his daily stops to the local restaurants for coffee and a piece of pie.
In those early days anyone with knowledge of medicine was welcome. Thus it was that Dr. Alonzo P. Welles, a recent graduate of the Hahnemann Homeopathic College of Medicine, came to McCook in 1888. He enjoyed membership in the Nebraska State Medical Association, and even served as President of that organization, even though he was not an MD..
Dr. Welles had an interesting past. As a 16-year old, he had enlisted in the Union Army with his father. In 1864 both father and son were captured and sent to prison in the infamous Southern facility, Andersonville, until they were paroled in March of 1865. Welles' mother, thinking they had both been killed, had moved on to another state.
Dr. Welles was active in McCook community activities, including GAR circles, several railroad lodges, Brotherhood of St. Paul and Anti-Saloon League, and a longtime Sunday School Superintendent and Choirmaster at the Methodist Church.
When Dr. Welles died, in 1906, the McCook Tribune commented upon his death, "...he was an educated, cultured, patriotic, Christian gentleman...died of complications from his diseases -- asthma, dropsy, and heart trouble."
Dr. D.V. Gage succeeded to the practice of Dr. Davis, when the good doctor moved to Omaha in 1893. Dr. Gage opened McCook's first hospital, a five-patient facility in rooms over the First National Bank. At that facility Dr. Gage, assisted by Dr. Emma Easterday, performed the area's first appendix operation, in 1896. Dr. Gage left McCook in 1903 to accept a professorship at the Omaha Medical College, but while he was here he was very active, both professionally and socially.
For instance; In February (!) 1895 Dr. Gage rode a bicycle to Indianola to make a professional call. Evidently he liked the bicycle because in May of that year he traded his horse and buggy to one, Charles Leach, for one of Leach's new bicycles. In 1896 he defied a Lincoln specialist, who recommended a certain treatment for RR Supt. Campbell's young son, by taking him to Denver to other specialists, who agreed with Dr. Gage's diagnosis, for immediate treatment. In 1902 Dr. Gage abandoned his bicycle for one of McCook's first automobiles, which was said to be "a very neat little wagon, which attracts much attention as it speeds, almost noiselessly, along the street without any visible means of propelling it."
Dr. Gage's son is yet another son of McCook who became a State Governor -- Wyoming.
Dr. Emma Easterday was one of the first of the few women doctors practicing in Nebraska in those early days. She came to McCook in 1893, and practiced medicine here until her death, at age 74, in 1937. Her office occupied the first floor of her home, the stately old structure at 312 East First Street.
Dr. Easterday came to McCook from Chicago as the bride of Horace Easterday, an original homesteader in this area. Originally, she was a Doctor of Osteopathy, obtaining her degree from Hahnemann Homeopathy College, Dr. Alonzo Welles' old school. In the 1890s she returned to school, becoming a regular Medical Doctor, with a degree from Cincinnati College of Medicine and Surgery. Dr. Easterday was well accepted by the local medical community, with no apparent bias to her because of her homeopathic training or her femininity.
When Mr. Easterday died in 1900, Dr. Easterday continued as a partner in her husband's business, "Real and Easterday of McCook" along with her Medical Practice.
In McCook Dr. Easterday was considered a specialist in "female problems", but she also had a knack for dealing with very young patients. In those early years most medicines were dispensed by pouring the medicine over sugar pills. Young visitors to Dr. Easterday's home and office were treated to the sugar pills, "without the medicine".