Otte agent Pompe ssh om es om ance Saturday, June 20, 1992 @ Our People Glen Freeman 365-7266 KIRKWOOD KIDS It’s no secret that seasoned elementary teacher Hazel Kirkwood is retiring after this school year, and now it’s no surprise that the fine folks at Valley Vista Elementary School are throwing a farewell bash for her Tuesday, June 23 from 2:30 p.m. to 4 p.m. at the Valley Vista school. Drop by and wish your favorite teacher a happy and prosperous retirement. WOMEN OF CASTLEGAR UNITE The Castlegar Women’s Association will hold their first annual meeting Monday, July 6 at 7 p.m. in the Castlegar Library to elect a slate of officers for the new year. Participants will also plan for fall activities. New members are encouraged join. The Women's Association was instrumental in getting three safe homes established in Castlegar where battered women and children can take temporary refuge. OurPEOPLE Long-time Castlegar doctor Paul Walker A man who has dedicated his life to the service of mankind will be retiring from the practice of medicine June 30th. Arthur Drysdale Johnson, 73, will hang up his stethoscope after a career which saw him treat patients from Parrsbaro, Nova Scotia to scattered communities in British Columbia — a residency at the Vancouver General Hospital in 1949, northeast to the gold mining town of Bralorne, to the beautiful Kootenay Lake community of Kaslo, and finally to Castlegar in 1952. After graduating from the Dalhousie University School of Medicine in Halifax in 1947 asa Doctor of Medicine and Master of Surgery, the then 29-year old physician opened his first practice in Parrsboro, Nova Scotia. Post war automobiles were just making their presence felt, and I can recall Art Johnson pulling out of a parking space in a brand new maroon, 1947 Hudson convertible. It was not only a sight to behold, but how could interns afford such luxurious vehicles making ten dollars a month? From Halifax it was off to Parrsboro, on the north shore of Minas Basin. Here Dr. Art opened his first practice, about 20-miles from his hometown of Great Village where his father, Dr. Tom Johnson, had dispensed wisdom and humor interspersed with a touch of human frailty, and some cures that would make your hair curl, and probably did from his own handwritten pharmacopeadia. Art Johnson surpassed the 38 years his father practiced, and to date, his younger brother Aubrey is still doctoring around the area of Great Village and Truro, Nova Scotia. Located in a large, battleship gray wooden house in the middle of the town of Parrsboro, complete with a bandstand on the front lawn, Dr. Art launched a medical practice known only to those who have experienced the life of a country doctor. The office located right in the home became a meeting place for the locals when they were under the weather. After dispensing his medical wisdom in the office, it was off to do house calls around the Parsboro area. By now everybody’s favorite father figure was driving a very large 1948 black Chrysler sedan, with a hood that extended out to a point, topped with a large shiny ornament. By 1949, the call of the West was too much. There were frontiers in British Columbia which hadn’t been tapped since the gold rush and construction of the railway. With all their possessions packed into the Chrysler, Art and his wife drove across the hot northern U.S. and came out near Vancouver. Art had heard of the good life in the West from a couple of his colleagues, and found himself at the Vancouver General Hospital doing a short residency. He couldn’t be convinced the When you come from Nova Scotia and you have all this at your fingertips, you enter a general practitioner’s Utopia. Then he experienced the first winter’s snows, the avalanches,” the isolation caused by snowfalls measured in feet and not inches, like back home. That winter of 1949 was the first taste of “Beautiful B.C.”! Art stayed on in Bralorne until 1952, then moved to the West Kootenay town of Kaslo. After the first burst of cherry blossoms, he received a telephone call from Castlegar. On the line was Dr. Pat Fowler. Dr. Pat gave Art a sales pitch News photo by Glen Freeman Castlegar Dr. Arthur Johnson is retiring after a long, eventful cross- Canada medical practice. city was the place to practice, and not being a specialist, would have no chance of putting his surgical skills to work. He was in Vancouver less than a year when the call went out to Dr. Art to really exercise all his medical skills. The destination was the Pioneer-Goldbridge Mines at Bralone, a bustling company mining town nestled in the mountains about 225 kilometers northeast of Vancouver. Here is just what the doctor ordered. A company supplied home, magnificent recreational facilities, and above all, “his” own hospital. This was it! ranging from the geographic, the then Waldie’s mill and nearby Cominco which was the life blood of the economy, the coming of Celgar, that magic industry which was going to change the face of history in. these parts for all time, and by — golly, a brand new hospital was just around the corner from being built in Castlegar. Another plus for any doctor was a medical plan for patients, and mill employees had MSA. It wasn’t long before Pat and Art were practicing from the top floor of the old Ed Louis Block on Columbia Avenue, the building where “Mother Nature’s Pantry” stands today. On the street level of that building was Castlegar Drug owned, Bosse’s Jewelers and Maddock’s Shoe Store. Upstairs, the Fowler and Johnson facility was first class by 1952 standards. Both had well appointed offices and examining rooms; a room for minor surgery, a room equipped with a portable x-ray machine used mainly for diagnosing fractures, and chest x-rays. Then there was the lab used for doing minor blood testing and microscopic examination, and also doubled as a dark room for developing x-rays. The office and waiting room was fairly spacious, lined with hardwood chairs, and a blazing west sun on a summer afternoon would beat down on the waiting patients. This was a GP’s heaven and a waiting patient’s hell! Coming to Castlegar meant new things to Dr. Art. There was a whole new cast of names of Russian origin, and most of the people over 50 years could not speak much English. It wasn’t long before a communication system was soon set in motion. Not only did you get “motion” in these unilingual situations, but a lot of “emotions”, especially if a child was very ill. By 1954, Drs. Fowler and Johnson were still sending their patients into the Trail Hospital or the Rossland Miseriacordia Hospital, and in later years to Kootenay Lake Hospital in Nelson, for treatment and any surgery which had to be performed by them, or refer them to a specialist in Trail. - Daily trips to the Trail and Rossland hospitals were but a heart beat in the life of Dr. Art. Surgery schedules had to be adhered to starting at 7:30 or 8:00 a.m., and newborn babies had no respect for time or distance for these doctors. Dr. Art would put in a full afternoon in his office seeing upwards of 30 patients, leave around 6 p.m. for supper, making ‘one or two house calls ‘onthe way home. No sooner had he sat down for supper, the telephone would ring. The voice at the other end would sound anxious as a vehicle accident or a household mishap had just occurred. There still was no hospital, no ambulance service with paramedics: It was the country doctor who attended such mishaps. @ Saturday, June 20, 1992 OurPEOPLE trades stethoscopes for llamas If the injury was not too serious and just required suturing or a cast on an arm or leg; Dr. Art would say, “bring them to the office.” If the injury was more than the office could handle, “take them to Trail, and I will phone or come in too.” Incredible as it may seem, Dr. Art would travel to Winlaw for a house call. I once asked him, “you are out all hours of the night, two or three or more times, night after night. Do you always have to go?” Dr. Art said, “they wouldn’t be calling me at 2 or 3 a.m. if they weren’t sick and didn’t need me!” Twelve hour days were the norm, 18 hour days were no exception, and it was not unreasonable to be away from home for 24 awaiting the arrival of a newborn. Those house calls were something else! Not everyone in the surrounding districts of Castlegar had telephones, and there were no signposts in Pass Creek or Thrums, or Shoreacres like there are today. It was easy to get lost from poor directions, or no directions at all. Besides, there were communities with surnames of Popoff, adenoids was $35; a fee of $100 for the removal of the appendix; in- office chest X-rays were $3, and routine in-office blood and urinalysis ranged from 50 cents to $1 fora sedimentation rate. Those aren’t very fancy number for services compared to today. No machine churned out facts and numbers at you then, either. . Then in April 1958, the Castlegar and District Hospital opened. Wow, what a set-up! Doctors no longer had to send sick people to Trail, Rossland or Nelson. Everything was new and shiny, even the administration! Nurses and supporting staff were new faces in the Castlegar medical community. Bit city medicine had come to Castlegar! Dr. Art was a philosopher in his own right. I recall one day a new mother was leaving the hospital with her new baby boy and Dr. Art happened to be at the Nurses’ Station (before the renovations), and the departing mother asked Dr. Art, why do some mother’s have their baby boy’s circumcised after birth? Without hesitation, through his twinkling eyes, and narrow smile, ‘(Dr. Johnson) earned the name “dipstick” from those who knew his weakness for new cars.’ Perepolken, Perepolkins, Salekan, Salikin; there was Bill William, or just plain Bill or William, or William F., William J. and the list goes on. It was an exercise in knowing where to go once you crossed the Castlegar Ferry to Robson, or over the now condemned Brilliant bridge which wound its way through the trails of Brilliant and Ootischenia: Sometimes it was a race with the stork, and armed with a “mat bag” it could mean a rowboat trip across the Columbia to a_ remote Doukhobor Village to deliver a’ newborn. For the devoted county doctor, he was rewarded with a $75 pre and post natal fee for his services of delivering a baby, and not always did you collect your private fee. I suppose it could be explained as a form of bartering, but some of the local people who could not pay their medical bills would make it up in fresh fruit and produce, and if you were lucky enough to get a chicken, it was usually deposited very much in tact and alive in a potato sack. And the borscht flowed in half- gallon sealers. In the mid 1950s, a country doctor or GP in British Columbia received $3 per office visit, a reduced amount for a return visit concerning the same disorder or initial diagnosis; $6 to $10 for emergency surgery requiring stitches and special treatment and dressings; the removal of tonsils and he replied, “Why do some people buy convertibles? He explained later that the mother would never have understood the medical reasons. Not long ago I overheard this elderly lady, too crippled with arthritis say, “Dr. Johnson is such a good doctor. He still finds time to make a house call when I call about all my aches and complaints.” Besides practicing medicine and surgery, Dr. Art had a penchant for cars. In his practice, Dr. Art would roll-up 24,000 miles some years. He had a second sense in diagnosing a faulty valve or cylinder. He was forever checking the oil and earned the name “dipstick” from those who knew his weakness for new cars. Pulling up to Jimmy Lamont’s Shell Station in a brand new 1955 Meteor, Jimmy comes out, looks, and says, “nice car, did the ashtray get full on the other one, Doc?” Art Johnson, cars and medicine are all synonymous. When Dr. Art would greet a patient who owned a car, the greeting was usually, “how’s the car running, Alex? Is it good on gas. Does it burn any oil? Ya know Alex, I was reading a report on that car, and they say the tie-rod ends tend to get loose, and give way. I'd go get that checked!" It reminds me of the time that Dr. Art had his car serviced at a service station just across the street from his old Columbia Avenue office, and it was after office hours and we were waiting for the ferry to take us across to Robson. Dr. Art looked up and said, “be damned, I think they forgot to replace the plug after changing the oil!" Sure enough, no plug, no oil! With the advent of Celgar in the early 60’s, and socialized medicine became of age, the hospital was renovated, and the days of the doctor who would routinely do daily house calls began to fade. More doctors came on the scene. Partnerships were dissolved, new partnerships, and new clinics opened. We were now in the era of “the drug cult, and the day of the vanishing breed of country doctor was quickly upon us. Drug abusers forced many small community doctors to see patients after hours in the hospital. It wasn’t worth the hassle to carry a medical bag with any medications, particularly pain killers. Indeed, this was the beginning of the end of many rural physicians to make house calls. The days growing-up on the family homestead in Great Village, and his love for horses and farm cattle imprinted deeply on Dr. Art. Having contracted polio at 19 years of age which left him with a . bit of a limp in the right leg, it wasn’t enough to stop him from pursuing the sport of harness or sulky driving, at the Truro raceway about 15 miles from home. In 1969, he acquired the old Ostrom farm just south of the Kinnaird Park road. As a “hobby farm”, Dr. Art began repairing the neglected property, acquired white faced, purebred “Hereford” breeding stock, showed them, and sold them. As time wore on, the cow crop has been reduced and replaced with Llamas. The Llamas have been a hit to the local elementary school children, and the country doctor relishes in showing his Llamas to the young people who come to visit on field trips. There have been lots of changes in Castlegar since the early 1950s. Kinnaird amalgamated with Castlegar to form the city of Castlegar. The population has gone from 1,700 to 7,000 in that time. The medical fraternity has nearly tripled, the industrial base has grown, and it’s a fine place to retire. What better time and place can we wish a happy and long retirement to a man like Dr. Arthur Drysdale Johnson — a man who sacrificed much, who has given 45 years of his life to the service of mankind. If you were one of the thousands of human souls brought into this world by that great country doctor, you were well looked after by a very compassionate, quiet, philosophical physician who is my friend. To know him is to be touched by that fragile human frailty that you and I cannot measure. Hidden behind that facade is a man of immeasurable wisdom and talent. Thanks Dr. Art, and have a great retirement with the birds and the bees, and the cows and Llamas rubbing the trees. Cheers! a photo by Glen Freeman News photo Arthur Johnson will have plenty of time to care for his llamas once his retirement is made official.