Letters of McCook’s earliest doctor

Continuing the saga of one of McCook’s earliest doctors, the letters of Dr. Byron B. Davis written to his fiancé were compiled and printed in book form by his son, Dr. John B. Davis. A portion of this book is available at the Southwest Nebraska Genealogy Society’s library for research covering the years from 1885 – 1887.

Some of you that read my column might remember my sharing of an article concerning the death of a Mrs. McAllister who lived in a dugout on the bank of the Republican and the tongue lashing the editor of the paper gave to the husband. Dr. Davis writes of visiting a sick woman without mentioning her name two weeks prior to the announcement of Mrs. McAllister’s death in the Tribune: March 6, 1886 “Must now go down under a bank in South McCook where in a little dark, filthy sod shanty about 10 ft. sq. live a man and his wife with four squalid children. The wife is quite sick and if she recovers under the circumstances she’ll do well. I would not sleep in such a place for a good deal. There seems to be much disease in the air. Can’t see how those children can live in such a place. They are nice enough people but criminally ignorant and shiftless.”

“Am tired out. Have not been so utterly wearied for a long time as the past day or two. With a cranky old woman and a man with delirium tremens each sending for me every half hour or so, life has been made a burden to me. But both are about well and I’ll hope to get a little rest. I have a least secured some lots for our home. They are a little nearer to the office than the ones I wrote you about. Just five and one half blocks away and I think their location about as desirable as any in the town. They cost five hundred dollars.” June 6, 1886.

“We are still confidently expecting the Rock Island Road. Do not think it will come but, you know, loyalty to the town demands that I expect it. Don’t you know that people in this world are not thought to be quite true blue if they do not bend their opinions to suit the wishes of the majority? Therefore we all of us ought to be confident the road will come.” September 3, 1886 (My notes: The Rock Island quite obviously did not come through McCook but rather from what I can determine went south into Kansas. When it broke up, even the Kyle Railroad got a share of the tracks they had built.)

September 18, 1886: “Was intending to fix up that plan for a house I have in mind but have been too busy for the past week to think anything about it. Glad to learn that you are accumulating a list of cottages for my inspection. Am glad this is the last year of boarding at hotels and sleeping in my office. Have been doing just about that sort of thing for ten years.”

“We-that is a dozen leading business and professional men of McCook-have a scheme. It is a secret at present. You may help me keep it. The scheme is this: to form a stock company, have it incorporated, and do a general loaning and in a year or two, a banking business. It will be known under the name of the “McCook Investment Company.” The capitol stock is to be $25,000 with the privilege of increasing at any time to $ 100,000 or any fraction thereof. It is divided into 250 shares of one hundred dollars each. The stock is to be paid in my monthly installments. I have taken twenty shares. Our object is to make money and it is to be done by loaning on chattels for which we can command from 2% to 3% per month, shaving notes, buying county warrants, purchasing real estate, loaning on real estate, etc., etc.” Dr. Davis continues: “Our dozen is made up of the solid men of the town. Charles F. Babcock, Gilbert Laws, as well as business and professional men of the town.” October 13, 1886.

I don’t know what became of the McCook Investment Company, but Dr. Davis did marry his sweetheart, Sopha Myers, and built a home in McCook in 1887. He was a well-respected physician in McCook and practiced there until 1893 at which time he left to study in Berlin, Germany and then worked in Omaha until his death in 1933.

Open library for our genealogy society is Wednesdays from 1-4 p.m. and we are located at 110 West C Street, Suite M-3.