An Apple a day...
By Darla Bracken
Doctors...what would our town be without our doctors? Friona’s first doctor was a Dr. E. E. Rohrabaugh who not only was the doctor but also owner of the first pharmacy. The pharmacy was housed in the old Parmertown Courthouse that was moved into Friona about 1910. Its distinctive design helped it become one of the more recognizable buildings in early day Friona. Other early doctors included Dr. C. S. Fergus and a Dr. Pillan. The pharmacy building became the First Baptist Church in 1914 and Weir’s Second Hand Store in 1924. It later was destroyed by fire according to the Church History.
Early doctors and other medical personnel had to be hard to come by so we have to be grateful to those dedicated people who settled with the other home seekers. We don’t know much about Dr. Rohrabaugh except that he was the first doctor and one of the prominent citizens. There’s a little more history about another early doctor, Dr. A. P. McElroy. According to a 1933 interview with Dr. McElroy by an Amarillo newspaper “History of Pioneer Family is Traced by Dr. McElroy, Friona”, Dr. McElroy’s family were pioneers who first came to America from Ireland in 1803. Of the three McElroys, John, George and Oliver, who came, George went West through the Cumberland Gap where he met and married a Miss Lowe from Crab Orchard, Kentucky. They raised their family in Indiana. This George then left for Texas in 1835 and was there during a yellow fever outbreak. As the family history goes, “George tried to return to his family in Indiana, but caught the fever and died near the mouth of the Ohio River. The boat bearing yellow fever patients was not allowed to land so he was given a ‘seaman’s burial’ in the Ohio River.”
His widow remarried and moved to Kansas in 1859 once again following the western frontier. George’s two sons, John and Nimrod, followed their mother to Kansas; but after her death; they moved with their families to Missouri. Nimrod McElroy lived near the Granby lead mines in the southwestern part of the state of Missouri. A. P. and his brother G. W. were born to Nimrod McElroy. A. P., at age 16, then accompanied his brother G. W., a Christian preacher, to a ‘claim’ in far western Nebraska in 1876. At the time this article was written, A. P. McElroy was 73 years old.
1876 happened to be the year of the Custer massacre and a couple of years later, according to Dr. McElroy, the same Indians made a raid into Red Willow County where they lived and killed many of their neighbors. He went back to Missouri to go to school, but in 1880 went to western Kansas where he married Miss Emma Lowe in 1883. So between 1876 and the time he came to Friona, he had seen lots of frontier adventures. He did not ‘stay with the covered wagons all the time’ as he also took time to attend college and earn a law degree and later a medical degree after deciding that law was not his first love. His medical degree was from Fort Worth Medical University, earned while also teaching science at Fort Worth High School for seven years and chemistry at Fort Worth Medical for 2 years.
For her part, Emma McElroy stated that after celebrating 50 years of marriage, “Doctor and I celebrated our golden anniversary recently so you see I’m not exactly a tenderfoot. I’ve seen about as much pioneer life as the doctor has.” Dr. and Mrs. McElroy were both extremely proud of their only son, Archie, who practiced medicine in Fort Worth for many years and their only grandchild Raymond, who graduated from Texas A & M, Class of 1932 and was a commissioned officer in the ORC.
We have several ‘homegrown’ doctors and other medical careers serving in areas all around the US and maybe the world that continues to make us all proud. To those who have served us here in Friona—Dr. Paul Spring, Dr. Lee Spring, Dr. Lee Cranfill, and Dr. Jeff Dickson...the tradition continues.
But when I think of the doctors I have known in my lifetime, I cannot help but think of dear Dr. Paul Spring. I remember when my younger brother Leslie and I were both very sick with a combination of the chicken pox and the measles—Dr. Paul made a house call with his black bag and everything so we wouldn’t have to get out. He performed an appendectomy for my father. He was not only my mother’s doctor when she was carrying me, but he also delivered both my own children. He was the first person I called when Rex’s dad passed away at home in 1986 and Dr. Paul came to their home to assist us all in any way he could. It was of immeasurable comfort.
NOTES: Longtime local historian, Hugh Moseley, was delivered by Dr. McElroy on January 22, 1927.
“100 years ago life expectancy in the U.S. was 47 years. The leading causes of death were: (1) Pneumonia and influenza (2) TB (3) Diarrhea (4) Heart disease (5) Stroke. There were about 230 reported murders in the entire U.S. More than 95 percent of all births took place at home. Only 8 percent of the homes had a telephone and just 14 percent had bathtubs. A 3 minute call from Denver to New York City cost $11.00.
There were some 8000 cars in the U.S. with about 144 miles of paved roads. The maximum speed limit in most cities was 10 mph. Alabama, Mississippi, Iowa and Tennessee were each more heavily populated than California.
Coffee was 15 cents a pound. Most women only washed their hair (their long hair) once a month and used borax or egg yolks for shampoo.”
