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Morris, ‘70s

“I took care of people regardless of their ability to pay,” Excerpts from the oral history of Morris Gold

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Forward

In 1997 the City of Lynnwood purchased the Gold property at a deeply discounted price with the condition that it would become a passive park. In 2007 with encouragement from the History Commission and Parks Planners at the City of Lynnwood, Edmonds Community College adopted Gold Park. Our earliest service-learning projects involved removing invasive species and cleaning up the park. By 2009 we committed to creating an ethnobotanical garden in partnership with the Snohomish Tribe, recognizing the importance of this park as a “Place of Medicine” under the previous ownership of the Gold family. Members of the Gold family occasionally joined some of our service-learning projects in the park and they had the most intriguing stories to tell.

As an anthropologist I am fascinated by local history and culture. The richness of the stories behind Gold Park cried out for more diligent documentation. In 2013 Thuyvi Nguyen from our Center for Service-Learning recorded the story of Caroline Ostby, a former Alderwood Manor resident who had given birth at the Gold’s clinic and whose mother had worked for Dr. Gold. In Fall of 2015 I had the chance to offer a course in American Religious Diversity that would be a great vehicle for engaging students in the collection and documentation of those stories. I reached out to the Gold family to schedule some oral history interviews with some of my students. Leah and Tamara Gold graciously agreed to the interviews and facilitated the sharing of these edited selections from the memoir of Morris Gold. My hope is that these stories will help college students and community members to connect more deeply with the fascinating people who once called this place at Gold Park home.

-- Thomas W Murphy, Anthropology Department Head, Edmonds CC

Preface

This is a partial transcription of my father’s oral history, which I recorded at his home in several sessions on May 28 - 31, 1988. Although we knew that he was in the final stages of cancer (multiple myeloma), we did not know how limited were his remaining days of mental clarity. It began to fall off markedly within the next week, due to accumulation of minerals in his brain. He passed away on June 29.

-- Leah Gold

Contents

Page 2 1: Early history, education, anti-Semitism, military service

Page 15 2: White Center and Langley practices; left-wing politics, natural childbirth practice begins

Page 22 3: Seattle practice, McCarthy era problems

Page 26 4: Early years of Lynnwood practice

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Page 33 5: Natural childbirth practice; relationship with medical community

Page 37 6: Struggles with anti-Semitism

Key M = Morris Gold

L = Leah Gold

B = Barbara Gold

Segment 1: Early history, education, anti-Semitism, military service

M: My father was born in 1882, in the small city of Rygorod, in the state of Ukraine, not far from the city of Kiev. In that community, they have a large beet sugar refinery, and he was employed as a technician in that plant until he was inducted into the military service.

The Russo-Japanese war of 1904 and 1905 occurred at that time, and he was shipped to eastern Siberia. Since bribery and corruption were quite commonplace, his family got him credentials that enabled him to leave his post and to take a train back to Russia. He got as far as the Romanian border and left Russia there.

L: So your father, after already being inscripted, managed to get some papers to flee. Where did he embark for America?

M: Well, I think that most immigrants went to German ports.

L: How old was he?

M: About 23.

L: Did he speak any English?

M: No.

L: How much schooling did he have?

M: Look, people didn’t have schooling. You see, in the first place, he did come from a literate family, and the older children taught the younger children to read and to write. So he was literate. But that doesn’t mean...I don’t think they had formal schooling.

L: They probably had religious schooling, right?

M: Everybody had religious schooling.

L: Was your father very religious?

M: No.

L: Was that atypical of people in his social group at that time?

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M: Well, it depends on what their thinking was. Some people are religious, some people are not.

L: So, you mean that he observed some Jewish customs, but he wasn’t a regular temple-goer?

M: I don’t know if he observed anything.

L: Okay. So he arrived in America, at Ellis Island, I assume, in New York City? And then he settled in Brooklyn?

M: First he lived in Manhattan. That’s where I was born.

L: But he didn’t arrive with your mother, right? He met her over here.

M: Yes, he met her over here.

L: Let’s talk about your mother, then.

M: She was born in Lomza, Poland.

L: And her name was...

M: Fanny...she pronounced in Can-o-vitch but I’ve seen it written Ka-han-o-vitch, that’s probably the right word. I think she ran it together.

L: Do you know what prompted her to leave Poland?

M: Well, immigrants came by the millions in that decade. Everybody was prompted by the same thing, just to get out and have a different life.

L: Wasn’t it also a difficult place to be Jewish?

M: Well, yes, they had pogroms in Russia, but every place is a difficult place for Jews. So you don’t use that as a reason, every place was difficult.

L: So, you figure that she probably left to try to have a better life.

M: Yes. They had no life and no future there.

L: You don’t know her exact birth date, I understand. Do you think she was about the same age as your father?

M: I think she was younger.

L: Do you know anything about how they met?

M: No.

L: Did she arrive about the same time as your father did?

M: I don’t know.

L: We should state your father’s name, I don’t think it’s on the tape.

M: His name was Solomon Goldstein.

L: In Yiddish it’s pronounced...

M: Shloima.

L: “Fanny” doesn’t sound very Yiddish. Is that an Americanization?

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M: I don’t know.

L: Where did the couple settle after their marriage?

M: In Manhattan.

L: What was your father doing for a living?

M: On my birth certificate, it says chandeliermaker. He worked in a chandelier place.

L: So he probably got into factory work here, as he had done in Russia, doing mechanical things.

M: Yes, which was different, because most Jews went into textiles, making clothes.

L: So, you were born in 1912, in Manhattan.

M: Manhattan Lying-In Hospital.

L: Then your sister Rebecca was born how much later?

M: I think she was born in 1918.

L: When did your parents move to Brooklyn?

M: I’m not sure, but I would guess about 4 or 5 years later. Because, see, six years later, my sister was born in Brooklyn, so they were already established in Brooklyn then.

L: And they had a store in Brooklyn, right?

M: Yes, they had a grocery store.

L: So probably the next significant change was your move to the Catskills. Do you know what brought that about?

M: They knew people, see, who had a resort in Fleischmanns. They talked them into going there, see, to Fleischmanns.

B: Sam Bass.

M: Yeah. They talked them into going to Fleischmanns. They had dreams that there you could buy a house, and have a store, and wouldn’t be a tenant, and you’d think that you’d have a better life and an easier life in a small community.

L: So they sold their business in Brooklyn, and with that money they bought....

M: They bought a property. We lived upstairs, above the store.

L: And what kind of goods did the store sell?

M: He bought a hardware store, and they had plumbing supplies.

L: How old were you at the time of the move?

M: I was ten years old. I think it was about 1922.

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L: And how did you feel about the move, from a place like Brooklyn to a tiny town in the Catskills?

M: I can’t remember.

L: You don’t remember whether you liked it or you didn’t like it?

M: No.

L: Do you know if your parents liked it, how they felt about the move?

M: Well, as long as you were making a living, you liked it. So, they made a living there, and they had their own property, and my father was good mechanically, so he started to do plumbing. He had a shop, so he did plumbing there.

L: Fleischmanns was a very small community, wasn’t it?

M: Yes. It was surrounded by summer hotels.

L: Farms, also?

M: Just a few, not much. It wasn’t a farming place. There were some, we had a creamery nearby.

L: So there was a lot of tourist traffic in and out of that area?

M: People didn’t tour in and out, they stayed. When they came, they stayed.

L: For like an entire summer?

M: For the entire summer, most people. Hotels, they stay for a week or two in a hotel, or a weekend in a hotel. But poorer people stayed in a cottage where a group of them had a common kitchen and they stayed there for the summer. It was so hot that even a working man could have his family stay there...

B: It was called cuchelain [Yiddish].

L: It was called what?

M: Cuchelain. Cook your own.

L: So, you finished growing up in Fleischmanns. Tell us a little about that. You went to a very small high school, I understand.

M: The grammar school and high school was in one building. So I stayed in the same building ‘til I got out of high school. From probably third grade.

L: I understand that there was a lot of pressure on you to perform well academically, right?

M: I don’t know if there was pressure. I just performed well academically.

L: But it’s true that your father wasn’t raising you up in his trade, right?

M: That’s right.

L: And tell me about how you chose the field of medicine.

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M: Well, it’s a Jewish cultural thing. The best thing that a Jewish boy could do was to become a physician. So you had a lot of Jewish boys in pre-medical school, trying to get into medicine.

L: Was it very difficult to get into medical school at that time?

M: It was almost impossible, because they had quotas. So you were blocked in every way. They just had quotas.

L: Quotas on the number of Jews they would accept?

M: That’s right, yeah. Some schools even had quotas for non-medical.

L: So, I understand that you did your undergraduate work at Syracuse.

M: Syracuse University.

L: And you had a chicken and egg business during the summer to support that.

M: Yes.

L: And you sold chickens and eggs to the big resort hotels.

M: Yes. Mostly eggs.

L: And for awhile you thought you’d make a vocation out of that, right?

M: Well, I don’t know. I just stayed with it, you know.

L: And it was pretty successful, right? You built up a good business.

M: I did. It was successful.

L: Is Syracuse a long way from Fleischmanns?

M: About a hundred and fifty miles.

L: So you lived up at Syracuse.

M: Yes.

L: You lived in a dormitory?

M: No. The first year I lived with a private family, then after that I just lived in housing, student housing, a place where students lived. Near the campus.

L: And you pretty much just took pre-med as your course of study?

M: Yeah. I went one year to the University of Florida. I came back because I felt that it really didn’t have the academic qualifications of Syracuse.

L: So, you eventually graduated from Syracuse. What year was that?

M: 1933.

L: Did you have a good grade point average?

M: Well, it was just fair. It was very difficult to get an A in anything at Syracuse. Very difficult.

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L: And I understand that you then had some difficulty getting into medical school.

M: I couldn’t get into medical school. And all the time I went there, I knew that hardly anybody was getting into medical school.

L: By the way, how did the Depression affect you and your family? Was your family a lot worse off during this period than they had been previously?

M: Well, they never were very well off. In a small town, you live by lack of expense. You live by not spending.

L: So the Depression didn’t bring a real noticeable change for the worse in your particular fortunes?

M: No, we just watched every dollar, and were careful.

L: Did you have significant enough savings from your business to launch you into your medical school career?

M: Well, I made enough every summer to go to school.

L: What was the process like of trying to get into medical school? Did you apply to a lot of different places?

M: I tried and was rejected.Then I gave it up!

L: You gave up trying to get into medical school.

M: Yeah.

L: What did you do?

M: I did nothing. I was just unemployed.

L: How long did that last?

M: Well, did I ever tell you this story, of how it went? In 1937, you see, in Fleischmanns there was a cherhud. A cherhud is a ritual killer... You see, the hotels buy chickens live, and the cherhud would go from hotel to hotel and he would slaughter the chickens. So, my father heard him say that at Takanassee Hotel there was a medical student from an English colony. So I went up to the Takanassee Hotel to see who it was. I was so naive, see. New York boys were sophisticated, they knew about places to go. I didn’t. Never even thought about it, in my home town. But New Yorkers knew.

So, I went to the Takanassee, where he’s working as a waiter. I asked, “Who do you have working who’s a medical student?”And they said, “Oh yeah, the boy’s name is Harry Fruhman.” And I remember the first time I saw him, it was the middle of the afternoon, and he was at the swimming pool, see, and he wore dark glasses.

L: So, he was lounging?

M: Yeah, because waiters are off in the middle of the day. They have to be there about five o’clock to get the tables set up. So I met him, and I found out that he went to Scotland. He had already put in two years in Scotland.

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He was a warm, friendly, outgoing guy, and he said “You can go there too! Anybody can go there.”

L: So this was 1937...

M: I lost four years.

L: Were you still selling your chickens and eggs during the summer?

M: In the summer, yeah.

L: And the rest of the time, you were helping your dad out?

M: Well, in the winter there was hardly anything to do. I went to New York a number of times to try to find any kind of job.

L: It was difficult, I’m sure, in the middle of the Depression.

M: I couldn’t find any jobs. I remember I found one job, it was because it was before Christmas. I worked from nine o’clock in the morning ‘til ten o’clock at night for fifteen dollars a week and they took off one percent tax, so the check was for $14.85.

L: What were you doing?

M: I was supposed to be a credit interviewer. It was a clothing store that sold on credit. There were little cubicles, which meant I had to have a suit, with a tie, like I was somebody, and interview them.

L: Well, you had a college education, which was something.

M: Yes, but I could have had the job without a college education. I just happened to have a college education.

L: So, you then applied to medical school in Scotland?

M: No, I didn’t even apply.

L: You didn’t apply?

M: No, I didn’t have time. Maybe it was August, and you have to be ready to go. In those days, all the mail went by boat. So, if you sent a letter to Europe, by the time it got back, a month had passed.

L: So you just went off to Scotland?

M: He told me, just take all your papers, and all your credentials, and your transcript, see.

L: And where did you go in Scotland?

M: To Glasgow.

L: What was the name of your school?

M: Saint Mungo’s College.

L: How did you like living in Glasgow?

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M: Fine. I went with some trepidation, because it was something to buy a ticket, you know, to go to the expense of going, without knowing that you’re going to be accepted. And there were a lot of medical students on that ship. I just envied them, because they were going for their second year, or their third year, or their first year, and they knew they were going. And I was going, and I felt like I didn’t really belong because I don’t know if I’m even in. But he said, “There’s no question about it.” He said everybody gets in.

L: It took a little bit of determination to maintain your drive for four years.

M: That’s right. Well, I didn’t maintain it, I dropped it. I thought I’d never get in, until I met Harry Fruhman.

L: So, how many years did you go to Glasgow?

M: Two years.

L: From ‘37 to ‘39. Did you come home during the summer in between?

M: Yeah, I came home during the summer.

L: And did you sell chickens and eggs?

M: I didn’t sell chickens. I only sold chickens at the beginning. Mainly eggs. I started with chickens, but my chicken business was dwindling.

L: Was it less profitable?

M: Well, it was too dirty, and it was a whole business. Eggs was a cleaner business.

L: So...

M: So in 1939 I came home, and then war started September of ‘39, the first week of September, then I couldn’t get back. I couldn’t get back to England, England was at war.

L: So what did you do then?

M: I stayed home and wondered how I was going to get into medical school, and where I was going to get into medical school. But there were a number of us in the same position, like me. So we had a whole group, we had a number that were stuck in the middle of our course. Isn’t that a terrible situation?

L: Terrible.

M: Yeah, all of us who had gone to Scotland that couldn’t get back into Scotland, we were in a position in 1939 where we didn’t go to college. It struck us just before, see. World War II started early September.

L: So what did you do?

M: I stayed home in Fleischmanns. There wasn’t anything else I could do.

L: So how did you eventually complete your studies?

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M: Well, since there were a number of people in the same position, we all worked at it, to see what we could do about getting into it.

L: So you kept in touch with the other students about it.

M: Oh, yes. We kept in touch, and we, most of us, went to Chicago Medical School, which admitted us. I lost one year out of my two years, see.

L: They didn’t accept all of the credits?

M: They didn’t accept all of the credits. So I lost one year.

L: I see. It was quite a long struggle.

M: Well, what could you do. I think some people went elsewhere. Maybe some of them were individualistic and found some other place to go and transferred.

L: So, you eventually got into Chicago Medical School and finished your studies there. Did you do your residency there, too?

M: No, an internship. I got an internship at St. Mary’s hospital in Huntington, West Virginia, and so I spent twelve months. And then I had to apply to get into the military service.

L: What year was it by this time?

M: It was ‘44.

L: So it was all during the war years that you were studying.

M: That’s right. And we also went summers, too.

L: In 1944 you would have been how old?

M: I was 32 then. Well, then I was supposed to start in the military service January the third in ‘45, and since I was finished with my internship in July of ‘44, then I took what you might call a residency, or probably a job, at the hospital right near Huntington, called Memorial Hospital. I stayed there, and I went to Massachusetts to take the state boards. I couldn’t take the state boards in Illinois.

L: Why?

M: Because they wouldn’t recognize the credits that I had from Scotland.

L: Even though the Chicago Medical School accepted them?

M: Yeah, but they didn’t. It was just another obstructive thing. Now, if I would repeat the freshman year, then I would be eligible to do it.

L: Seems absurd, doesn’t it?

M: It is absurd, yeah, so I didn’t want to. Some fellows did repeat it.

L: But why did you take the boards in Massachusetts, and not West Virginia, or New York, or someplace?

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M: Well, first place, I didn’t know where I would be allowed to take the state boards.

L: Because of the Scotland credits?

M: Because of the Scotland credits being mixed up, see. But we knew that we could take them in Massachusetts. For instance, I went to Boston with Jerry Tobis, who’s now quite a professor. And we sat the state boards together. So at least, I would have a license. After all this, I had no license.

So, we went to Boston and I sat the state boards in Boston. Which also meant that now I could be eligible to get into the armed services. You have to be licensed in a state to be a physician while you are serving.

L: Otherwise, you just would have had some other job?

M: That’s right! You had to be licensed, see.

L: So you passed the boards?

M: That’s right, I did. So then I was eligible, and I went to Fort Hayes, in Ohio, where I was inducted and passed the examination. So I got into the service. A convoluted, difficult process. Everything is an obstacle.

L: You were in the Army?

M: Yeah.

L: How long were you in the service?

M: I was in the service for two years. I came to Seattle in the fall, like the end of September, of ‘46.

L: What had you been doing while you were in the service?

M: Well, first I went to the Army school of military neuropsychology, which is a three-months course. I saw on the bulletin board, that those who wanted to go, to sign up.

L: Your preparation before this had been pretty much general medical practice?

M: Yeah, that’s right. So I did that, and then I became a ward officer. It’s a tremendous big hospital.

L: Psychiatric hospital?

M: That’s right, yeah. So then I became a ward officer there, in Long Island. And then I was moved to a hospital ship, ‘cause they were bringing soldiers back. I was supposed to be the psychiatrist on the hospital ship. So, I took a couple trips on the hospital ship.There were other hospital ships, and pretty soon they didn’t need any more hospital ships.

L: Because the hospital ships specifically moved people who were wounded?

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M: Wounded, yeah, wounded people. Now, since I was on the hospital ships, I was in another area of the military which was called transportation corps. So then, they put me on troop ships, as a general physician.

L: As the ship doctor?

M: Yeah. On troop ships.

L: So, these troop ships were withdrawing troops from various stations where, in the Pacific?

M: That’s right, both. My last trip was to Japan again. And that ship came to Seattle. That’s how I came to Seattle.

L: Do you feel in the mood to tell us about some of your experiences in the Army?

M: In the military? Sure, it’s easy. Well, one ship took Germans back, see.

L: Took prisoners of war back?

M: Yes, prisoners of war back to Germany, one ship. And on that ship, I did an appendectomy at sea. But I had a previous experience, because on my first trip to Japan, see, which goes through the canal, on my first trip to Japan one man did have appendicitis. Came down with appendicitis, and I did and appendectomy.

L: Was that your first appendectomy?

M: That was my first appendectomy.

L: Is that something that wouldn’t typically be the role of a general practitioner?

M: No, or of somebody just getting out of an internship, to have that responsibility. Because I had to give both the anesthetic, and do the surgery, see. So, I had difficulty, and I was plenty scared. I was plenty scared, but I thought I could do it with a spinal, see. But I couldn’t get into the spinal cord for some reason. Maybe lack of experience. So, I wasn’t able to do it, and then we got an ether mask, and I put him under with the ether. And got one of my assistants--there weren’t any nurses, there were just corpsmen--to keep dropping the ether. So I just scrubbed up, and hoped that he was deep enough to open up. So I opened him up, found the appendix, and found it was bad. Because you hate to do that and find that you made a mistake, and he didn’t have appendicitis after all.

So, I did the job, and we when we got to Japan he was taken off the ship to a hospital for observation. But I was kind of a hero on the ship, everybody thought well of me for doing that.

They had a smallpox epidemic in Japan at that time. So before we landed, a boat came over with smallpox vaccine for everybody. So that we wouldn’t go in there without being inoculated. But then on the ship coming back, we were loaded with troops, see, coming back, and a couple of men got smallpox. They probably had smallpox before they came, and maybe the

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symptoms didn’t show up until after they were there. So they were in an isolated ward. It was dangerous for all those soldiers--there must have been at least three thousand men on the ship. And I was the only one who had contact with them. I was the only one who to chance to go in and see them, see how they were doing.

L: You had been vaccinated?

M: Yeah, oh yeah. So we also had a fellow who came down with appendicitis, we did another appendectomy on the way back to New York. But this time I had some help, because among the men that came back, the three thousand, there were a couple of doctors. They were just passengers, but at least you had somebody to assist, see.

So, it was quite a trip. A voyage takes about a month.

L: These guys with smallpox, how did they fare?

M: They did fine.

L: You started to tell about transporting German POWs back to Germany.

M: Yeah, that was interesting, because there were only about a handful, maybe half a dozen Americans on the ship. It was just full of Germans, and I thought at any time they could just take us over.

L: A mutiny, huh?

M: Yeah, at any time, see. But the war was over, and they were quite disciplined. They just ran everything.

L: And on this ship you also had to perform an emergency appendectomy?

M: Well, all appendectomies are emergencies.

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Segment 2: White Center and Langley practices; left-wing politics, natural childbirth practice begins

L: So when you were through with your tour of duty, then, they brought you to Seattle.

M: They did, we went to Seattle. I guess if that ship hadn’t come to Seattle, I would never be in Seattle. It wouldn’t have occurred to me, because I was born in New York State, raised in New York State and raised in the East. I worked out of the Brooklyn port of embarkation, and I would have stayed in New York, or Massachusetts, or someplace in the East. I wouldn’t be out in the West.

L: So, you just liked the looks of Seattle?

M: When I came here? I sure did.

L: I guess you had to go somewhere to start your practice.

M: That’s right, I had to go somewhere. And I was here, and I liked it, I thought it was very nice. I thought, these people don’t know what they’ve got! The natives, you know, they were just accepting it as a matter of course.

Now, I had to have a license in Washington. The examinations were the second and third of January, 1947. I came in the end of September, and I was still in the military, but I was getting out. So I had some of October, November and December to study, which I did.

So I sat the state boards, and as soon as I sat, I left, I went back home. End of January, or early February, I was notified that I had passed, and I was licensed.

L: So there’s nothing stopping you now.

M: There’s nothing stopping me now.

L: How did you proceed then? Did you pack up all your worldly goods?

M: Yeah, I packed up. We had a Terraplane car.

L: What’s that?

M: It’s a Hudson. It’s a small, kind of a...you know, Hudson, made by the Hudson Motor Car Company. And I believe that was a ‘37 car, see, so that car was like ten years old. But that was the family car. So I packed my credentials, and packed up books, and stuff like that. And I was ready to go back, go West, where I didn’t know anybody, see.

L: You were driving the family car?

M: Yah.

L: They weren’t going to miss it in your absence?

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M: Well, it was the only way. How could I go? I don’t know if they had any...they probably didn’t need it in Fleischmanns, in a small town, and I’m not sure if we had a little truck or not. Maybe we did have a truck at that time. We might have had a truck.

L: How long did the trip take you?

M: Takes about a week. Spent about a week traveling.

L: Of course they didn’t have interstates then. So it was a week of pretty steady foot-to-board driving. You didn’t dally.

M: That’s right. And I came here, and got a room in a place called Hampton Arms Hotel, on Ninth Avenue. I don’t think it exists now. And then I had to look around for a place. It’s pretty hard when you don’t know anybody, or have any connections, or anything, see, to look for a place to practice. All I would do is just drive around, see what does this neighborhood look like, and what does this neighborhood look like...

L: So you were looking for a practice in Seattle at that time?

M: Yeah, I was looking for a place in Seattle.

L: So what turned up for you?

M: Well, I found a place in White Center.

L: Where is White Center?

M: Well, White Center is...you don’t know where Delridge Way is...White Center, I’d have to show you on the map. It’s South Seattle. And it was a working class neighborhood, near the Boeing plant in South Seattle. I guess I felt more comfortable with working people.

L: So you just happened to see an empty office there? Or had you seen an advertisement?

M: No, I didn’t, I just looked around. The building, the building is there, it was called the Triangle Building. And there were already two doctors on that floor. They were upstairs. It had a tavern below, and these two doctors were upstairs. One was a pretty old man, and he was kind of retired, or semi-retired, or ready to retire. And the other one was an active young man.

So, it was just a flat, is what it was, so I had to make an office out of it. Of course, in those days, everything was simpler. Everything was really simple. And I also lived there, since it was a little flat, see. I had sort of a little day-bed in one of my rooms.

L: So, how did you go about building up a clientele in White Center?

M: Well, it’s hard anytime you start up. Nobody knows about you. And that also was my downfall, in a way.

I did something that today wouldn’t mean anything, but then, see…here I was, I had an office, and you wait for patients who don’t know you exist. So, there was a left-wing bookstore, a radical bookstore. I used to go there, to

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the radical bookstore, and then, I said, I’d like to send out announcements. So I thought that if she would give me a list of names, and addresses, I’ll send out some announcements. I might have sent out a hundred announcements, or something like that.

L: To people who were the clientele at the bookstore?

M: Yeah, yeah, that the bookstore knew about in that area. See, all it was, was just simply an announcement. And Barbara got an announcement. She was on that list. They knew about her. Maybe she wasn’t on the list. I don’t know. Maybe someone else that she knew was on the list. So if she wasn’t on the list, someone told her that there’s a new doctor here, in White Center.

L: This is not the first time you have mentioned allying yourself with someone who is known for their left-wing political opinions. How did your own political philosophy develop? You have always been very aware of the world around you, and fairly active.

M: Yeah, okay. Uh, I guess I must have had a tendency, with my father coming from Russia, see, to be a left-winger. And also, the people that I knew.

L: Oftentimes, though, immigrants are very conservative, because they are eager to assimilate.

M: Not Jews. Not Jews. Not Jews. And it turned out that your mother was that way. That was one of things that we had in common.

So that’s the reason, you try to get help from the people who think the way you do. You’re new in a community, this is where you go, see, to make friends and to meet people.

L: So then you slowly built up your clientele? I imagine your overhead was fairly low.

M: That’s right, I paid eighty-five dollars a month rent. No, something happened to me over there. You see, I sent these announcements, they were just simple announcements, to a number of people. Well [name redacted - the other young doctor in his building], someone told him about it, or brought him the announcement. And he turned me in to the Ethics Committee of the King County Medical Society.

L: Because at that time it was considered that doctors shouldn’t advertise in any way?

M: Yeah, yeah. It’s a simple thing, today they send out, they do everything. Simple thing, just an announcement that you’re open to practice at this place. So either he was an anti-Semite, or he didn’t like me, or he resented the fact that I came there as a competitor, I just don’t know. I had to get into the medical society, and I got two doctors to sponsor me. But he told them, and one of my sponsors removed his sponsorship. So there I was, in hot water.

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Now, I was in practice less than a year. But if I didn’t get into the King County Medical Society, there was no hope for me, in King County.

L: You had to belong to the Medical Society?

M: Yah.

L: Was that a law? I don’t understand.

M: Well, the Medical Society controls you, see it. The King County Medical Society has the King County medical insurance program. So you have to be a member of King County Medical. If you want to be in a hospital, you have to be a member of King County Medical. So if you’re not in King County Medical, there’s no use being there. You may have a license, but if you’re not in the Medical Society...

So then I knew I would have to leave. I started looking for a place to go, out of King County. I went to Langley.

L: Langley, on Whidbey Island.

M: Yeah, because it was Island County. So that’s why I moved. And this is an eventful time, this time of the year for me, because I opened up on Decoration Day.

L: Memorial Day?

M: Memorial Day. We called it Decoration Day. This was in ‘48, when I moved to Langley.

L: Just in passing, you had mentioned that my mother Barbara had received the announcement about your practice. Did she become your patient at that time?

M: Yeah.

L: So she was living in White Center, she was married to Harold Crane, and she had three sons. Can you remember what your first impressions of her were? Probably she was just a patient, and you didn’t pay too much attention?

M: Well, I think she brought her child in.You’d have to ask Mother about that. I think she might have brought, maybe Andy in. Since was a Seventh Day Adventist, or used to be a Seventh Day Adventist, she used to go to her doctor on Sunday.

L: Because Saturday was her Sabbath.

M: Yeah, that’s right.

L: But she hadn’t been practicing for a long time.

M: Maybe not. But it also meant that she wanted to know if she could see me on Sunday, see. So I used to see her on Sunday.

L: Since you lived right there anyway, it was easy.

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M: I’m not sure if I lived there at that time, because my folks came, and they bought a house, and I lived with them. That was in West Seattle.

L: So, during this time at White Center you had a strictly professional relationship, or did you see other socially?

M: Well, after I saw her professionally, then I saw her socially. Because I knew that she was very unhappy with her marriage, and that she was going to get out of it as soon as she could. But when you are depending on a man, having three children, you have to move slowly to break it up. It wasn’t anything rash.

L: But you were pretty interested by then.

M: Yah.

L: So, you went to Langley and established yourself in practice there.

M: Which was easy.

L: Because they were crying for a doctor. So you didn’t have to send any announcements at all, the word was out.

M: It was in the local paper, sure.

L: How long were you at Langley?

M: I opened about Memorial Day, 1948. I think I left about ‘50, 1950, and bought the place at Capitol Hill.

L: Tell me something about your time on Whidbey Island.

M: Well, after I got to Langley a few months, then Chaffee left.

L: Chaffee was at Langley?

M: Well, he was at Coupeville and Oak Harbor.

L: I didn’t realize that your acquaintance with Chaffee went back that far.

M: Yes, that’s how I know Chaffee.

L: So, you were at the southern end of the island, and he was at the northern end.

M: There was one other doctor there, at Oak Harbor. So, he [Chaffee] used to come to Langley about one or two days a week, for a couple of hours, see. But he lived up there, he lived in Coupeville, and he had two offices at Coupeville. In my first year there, probably around the fall of that year, I took over his offices. He was trying to get somebody, but anyway, he had to leave, to go to Africa.

L: He was a missionary.

M: Yeah. So I used to go every day. I would leave Langley and go up to Coupeville.

L: How far is that?

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M: About thirty miles to Coupeville. I used to be in Coupeville in the afternoon, then I went to Oak Harbor. I stayed overnight in Oak Harbor, and I think I had office hours early in the morning in Oak Harbor, and then I left Oak Harbor and came down to Langley. So I was operating three offices. Oak Harbor was about 38 miles away.

He had a nurse up there. And I had a nurse at Langley. So I had somebody to make appointments, somebody to do little things, see. So I did that, I used to go up and back every day. Every day I’d make a trip, one way or the other. You know, you get tired of that, after a few months. And then I quit the Oak Harbor, and then the Coupeville office.

L: There wasn’t any hospital on Whidbey Island.

M: There was no hospital on Whidbey Island.

L: Is this where you started doing home deliveries?

M: Yeah. But there was a nursing home, a nurse had a home in Coupeville, and we did deliveries at her place, see.

L: It seems that you developed somewhat of a specialty in OB GYN. Many general practitioners don’t touch it, right?

M: Yeah, maybe.

L: But you were doing it. Was this part of your practice that you particularly enjoyed?

M: Well, it was challenging. In the first place, their were no specialists on the island, there was no hospital on the island. If you had trouble, you’d have to go to the mainland, and put the patient on a ferry. And if it was at night, the ferry didn’t operate. You’d have to get a ferry out special to take the patient to Everett General Hospital. So, there’s a bit of a risk involved, more so than ordinarily.

L: Did some patients elect to go to Everett General when they felt their first contractions?

M: No, they just came to me. They expected to be delivered at Polly Harpole’s, her name was Polly Harpole, at Coupeville. That was the place that they went. And I started then thinking that we could do it at home, instead of going up to Harpole’s. So then we started doing home delivery in the south end, instead of making that trip. Each thing had certain advantages. See, at least if they went to Polly Harpole’s, then she’d watch them, and call me when the patient was ready.

L: Anything else that distinguished this period?

M: I was a solo doctor, and the telephone office was operated by a telephone operator, see, it wasn’t automatic. So she knew where I was. If I went someplace, I would tell her. If they called for me, and I wasn’t there, then she’s say, “Well, he went out to so and so’s place.”

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L: Did you keep in touch with Mom during this period?

M: Yah. That’s right. She used to come out.

L: She came out?

M: That’s right. Her mother came to Langley, to live.

L: Her mother moved to Langley?

M: Yes, her mother and her sister moved to Langley.

L: Mom came to see you socially, then, or professionally?

M: She came to see me socially. By that time, we were pretty well involved.

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Segment 3: Capitol Hill practice, McCarthy era problems

L: So, in other words, one of the reasons that you left Langley was to be closer to her, to go back to Seattle? Or why did you decide to leave that practice?

M: Well...

L: They’d certainly been more hospitable to you than King County was.

M: That’s right. Well, I got a little tired of the solo practice. Of always having to be available, at all times, to everybody. And certain little things bothered me. There were some people who only saw me in the case of an emergency. But they did there doctoring elsewhere, like Seattle or Everett. So I thought, well, I don’t want to spend the rest of my life here.

By now I was a member of the Snohomish County Medical Society, and I thought that if I went back to Seattle, I could transfer my membership from one to the other, without the hassle. It was a gamble that I took. So I found a place, a nice place, on 10th North.

But then, even when I was at 10th North, I still went a couple days a week to Langley.

L: So, you bought this building at 10th North. It was different from your other set-up at White Center, it was a whole building. That was rather a nicer area, too, wasn’t it, Capitol Hill?

M: Yah. Centrally located. It was a nice building, and my father helped renovate it.

L: So you set yourself up in practice at 10th North...

M: At 10th North, and then that was slow.

L: It was hard to get established.

M: Yeah, any new practice is hard to get established.

L: By now it would have been what, about 1950?

M: Yeah, about 1950, or ‘51, maybe.

L: And what was developing with Mom, at this point?

M: Uh, she had already left her husband, she was already divorced. She left White Center and got an apartment near where I was. And she helped renovate, worked with the place to get it ready for an office. And we were just the same as married, and we finally got married while I was there at 10th North.

L: So, but you did manage to build up a clientele, on Capital Hill?

M: Well, you did manage some, but it was slow. Any time you go to a new place, it’s just slow. You don’t have enough people to keep you busy. You see a few people a day, very few people a day. I used to go to hotels, and

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make house calls, especially on drunks and like that, see. And, I had a few people from Langley that came down, and I had a few OBs that wanted me to deliver them.

L: Home deliveries.

M: Yah. The first one was Cohn. She was the one that got me started again here, and didn’t want to go to the hospital.

L: So, I imagine that once you start getting some patients, you get some word-of-mouth.

M: Yeah, that’s right. But I wasn’t there long enough. I started there in 1951, and we bought the place in Lynnwood in 1954. I wasn’t there very long. It takes years to build up a practice, if you just go out solo. You can’t put anything in the paper, you can’t...it just has to go by word-of-mouth. You have a shingle in the front, and who knows you?

L: So, what prompted you to move to Snohomish County? You did get into the King County Medical Association?

M: No, I never did. No.

L: You never did? Oh, so you thought that you could transfer your membership, but that wasn’t the case.

M: I thought I could, but that wasn’t the case. A couple of mistakes were made. We were active in left wing things. There was a case, and this doctor from New York [Dr. Stanley Orloff] who was doing kitchen work, and he was an MD, because he didn’t want to go to Korea.

L: He had tried to object, but he’d been drafted?

M: Yeah, he was drafted. That’s right. And he had a case, and Caughlan was his attorney. It was even written up in a national medical magazine.

So Sally Caughlan said...I didn’t think it was a good idea, but she said, the doctors ought to know about it. We should have a party, the doctors and lawyers will all want to come. But you see, what you learn is, you don’t shoot off your mouth unless you got strength. If you haven’t got the strength, then you don’t do that.

So, I was known as a Red.

L: Wait a minute, what happened?

M: We had a party [a fundraiser for the drafted physician’s legal defense].

L: You had a party and you invited physicians, professional people?

M: Oh yeah, we sent out to professional physicians, and of course, they didn’t come. Yet, they had gotten invitations. It was because of Sally. See, it was a central place, and a nice place.

L: So, by doing this, you got a reputation as a Red at a very bad time.

M: That’s right. A very bad time, a very impolitic time.

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L: Were the HUAC hearings going on yet?

M: I think they were going on at about that time, or maybe a year later. And so it was so impolitic of me, it was poor judgment.

L: Were you actually a member of the Party?

M: No. Now, before I came to Seattle, of course, I was in the military service. Before I was in the military service, I was an intern and a resident in Huntington, Virginia. And I had no connections in Huntington, I didn’t know anybody, I didn’t attend anything. But, when I came here, see it, between [name redacted] and [name redacted], they wanted me to go to these meetings, and I wouldn’t go. I had enough judgment not to go, I didn’t want to go, to have any connections. I didn’t.

But, when the hysteria came up, then I just wondered about my connections. In the first place, a number of these people were patients of mine, they came in. And one man, who was a well-known figure, was on trial. I knew him very well. Of course, he was pretty upset about it, and he came into the office once and wanted some sleeping pills. ‘Cause he was going to jail, and sometimes you need something to help you sleep, which is understandable. I mean, drugs weren’t the thing like they are today. You know, people didn’t use drugs.

L: As far as you knew.

M: No, they didn’t, really. It wasn’t common.

You know, he took all the pills I gave him and committed suicide with it.

L: You must have felt terrible.

M: Yah, yah, he committed suicide. He was on trial. And it was in the paper that I was his doctor, and gave him the medicine.

L: Oh gosh, that didn’t look good.

M: Yah. It’s a shame, how circumstances go, yah.

L: He was probably worried about having to incriminate his friends, also.

M: Maybe. So, I felt uncomfortable. In general, I felt uncomfortable. ‘Cause I was in the middle of a lot of things, but not enough to put the finger. But I didn’t know what was going to happen, or what somebody was going to...I just didn’t know for sure.

And you know the circumstances of how I came to Lynnwood.

L: Well, you wanted to go to Snohomish County, right?

M: I wanted to get out of the county.

L: It was probably looking less and less likely that you were ever going to get privileges there.

M: That’s right. King County was like a foreign country to me now. I wanted to get back to Snohomish County, where I already had membership. I knew

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doctors in Everett. I knew a number of them, and I was a member of the Snohomish County Medical Society, so I wouldn’t have all this hassle. I wanted to get into Snohomish County, someplace.

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Segment 4: Early years of Lynnwood practice

L: How did you find the place in Lynnwood?

M: Well, Lou Bernstein came over one time, and he wanted to deliver some merchandise. You know, he sold doctor’s supplies, medical supplies, and surgical supplies. So he said, “I’ve got to go make a delivery, why don’t you come with me?” And I had such a big practice, I could leave it, and go with him! There wasn’t anything to do, anyway. So, I went with him.

Now downtown, in the Denny Regrade, at 8th and Bell, there was a sign that Matheny and Bacon sold old buildings that you could tear down, or move. And it said, these were classrooms that were for sale. Now, I hadn’t looked at the paper, I hadn’t thought about it, about the classrooms that were for sale, so I stopped by, and found out there was a whole block full of classrooms. But they were all sold except for one piece. There was 200 feet left. He had the 200 feet left, and it was ten dollars a foot. So it was $2000, and I had to move it within a month.

So I called up the architect, George Bolotin to look at it. I said, “George, can I make a clinic out of these buildings? I’ll move it to the country.” I didn’t know where. But I thought maybe I could afford to do that.

He said “Sure you could.” So I gave them a deposit, and bought it. And then I had the job of finding a place to put it.

L: South Snohomish County was pretty undeveloped at that point, wasn’t it?

M: Oh yeah, sure, it was undeveloped.

L: There was Everett, and downtown Edmonds, and not much on the highway.

M: Not much of anything. So anyway, I’d bought the building, and now I had to find a place to put it. So what did I do? I just went up the highway. I went up Highway 99, which was a thoroughfare. And, I’d go up one day and look. I’d look for open ground, see if I could find out who owned it, or see a For Sale sign or something like that. And then I’d go down the other side, and look. I probably looked superficially or looked quickly, or something like that. I wouldn’t go to a real estate agent, see.

I went a couple times and didn’t see anything. And then one time I thought, well, I’ll try a side street, maybe I’ll find it on a side street.

So, you know where the flower shop is on Highway 99, just by the post office? So I got off the highway there...

L: On 208th, I think?

M: Yes, on 208th. So I got off on 208th and went up 68th street.

L: That was mostly owned by the army there, right, there was an installation.

M: On the west side. But I’m talking of the east side. So when I got up to 200th, I turned it to look. And there, in front of our place, there’s a For Sale sign. I guess it was just put up one or two days before. The owner was across the

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street, and I spoke to the owner. It was seven and a half acres, $20,000. And it looked good to me. It was close to the highway, see. I didn’t want to go too far up north because I had patients in Seattle by now, and I wanted to be available to those few patients I had in Seattle. And it would be easy for them to find me, because it was just off the highway. It also had the other advantage that it was near the commercial area, near the intersection. It’s not way out in the woods someplace, by itself.

L: Right.196th and Highway 99 was sort of a commercial intersection for people in the area. So, you probably had to level the land?

M: No, I didn’t touch the land, that’s the way it was. And of course, I got a mover to move it. I paid $2000 for the building, and $2000 to the mover, for moving it and setting it up. That was $4000. And George Bolotin laid it out, where it should sit. He laid out the L shape and the rooms. I thought that if I can just get the clinic part going, then it didn’t matter how I lived, how we lived, in the back. It didn’t have to be completed.

L: By this time, though, you had Tammy and Danny, right, you had quite a growing family.

M: Yeah, I had Tammy and Danny. When we made the deal, see... I found it Sunday morning, and I thought I had the place, so I said to the seller, I said I’ll bring my wife over. And Tammy was three months old. So we brought the baby with us.

L: Danny would have been about, a little over two?

M: Maybe. Yeah. So anyway, we made the deal then, right then. I gave him $5000 down. And then I had to pay him $200 a month. And then we had to construct it, it was just empty classrooms.

L: So it was all laid out on one level. It was long halls, with rooms off the halls.

M: Yeah, that’s right.

L: What was the square footage, do you know?

M: It was 4800 square feet.

L: So it was a big place.

M: It was a big place. And I said to Barbara, your mother will be able to live here, with us. And we’ll be able to live in the back, we’ll have space to live, so we won’t have to go out and buy a house, and pay additional rent, see.

L: Uh huh. Because you were still sort of struggling, you weren’t an established, prosperous physician, a man of means.

M: Oh no, I wasn’t. I didn’t have the chance to get that, that’s right.

L: So when did you see your first patient at the clinic in Lynnwood?

M: Well, I don’t know. But I used to keep a chart, for the first year, of how many patients I saw, and I didn’t see many. Maybe I saw 25 in a week, in a whole week.

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L: You started seeing patients in 1954, or 1955?

M: 1955. We moved in on the last day of February, ‘55.

L: Mother was already pregnant with me then, wasn’t she?

M: Yeah, she must have been pregnant with you then, in ‘55. So, it turned out to be a good thing to do.

L: Why was that?

M: Well, people were going to the suburbs. Families were moving to the suburbs, and the suburbs were being developed.

L: So you got your foot in the door at just the right time.

M: So I went into a place where other people volunteered to go. I was forced to go! To get out of the city, and other people chose to go there.

L: So tell us about the beginning of your practice at Lynnwood. You opened it in February of ‘55, I was born in October of ‘55. At the time of my birth, you were 43, and mother 41. So you were just beginning this practice at Lynnwood, you had her three older sons living there also, and you also had livestock at that time, you had acreage.

M: That’s right. You see Barbara has a better memory for everything. She’ll tell you when we got the first cow. And the second cow. I can’t remember that.

L: Right. Well, tell us about your perceptions then, from your point of view, of these early days at the clinic. You weren’t so busy at first, but at some point your practice started to take off, right?

M: Yah, well, always there was something to do, yah. And my practice and the house was in the same place, so it was fine.

L: And having a young family is time-consuming, also.

M: That’s right, that’s right. Well, when I first started, I didn’t have any helper. I just had a lady who came in at the end of the month to make bills out, for a few months.

L: What was the charge for an office call, at that time?

M: I think it was from three to five dollars, three or four dollars. First place, I never looked at my practice as a business, number one. Two, I felt that I had a higher calling. That’s something doctors don’t have any more, I don’t think. That they have a higher calling.

L: You had a commitment to help people, in other words.

M: I had, yah. And a few doctors, I think other doctors had the same feeling, other doctors. I looked at the people as being unfortunate, ‘cause most of them were poor, and they needed help. And you’re in the position to help them, so you help them. You didn’t ask them if they could pay for it, you didn’t ask them if they had insurance, you simply looked after them.

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L: And what sort of clientele did you have there in Lynnwood? Who were the people came to you?

M: Well, they were mostly working class people, they lived out there, and worked in Seattle. Other than, say, Boeing, hardly anybody had insurance. Some people had Blue Cross, or other companies, but there wasn’t very much, see. And I did a lot of OBs, without extracting the money in advance.

L: What did you charge for a delivery?

M: I think that we charged about $175 to $200 to start with, for the whole thing. We didn’t make any extra charges. Whatever we did, if we took blood, we took blood, if we did tests, we did tests.

L: It was all included.

M: It was all included.

L: So at what point did you start to be pretty busy? I guess there weren’t many doctors there when you first came out, right? Not much competition.

M: That’s right. There was another doctor there in Lynnwood, yah. Of course, the population wasn’t too big, at that time.

L: Right. So this was quite a boom period, then, for South Snohomish County.

M: No, it took time, it took years, really.

L: Well, we’re talking over 20 years, say from ‘55 to ‘75, that area went through terrific change.

M: Oh sure, it did, it did. I used to be very glad that I had a place, the place that I had, when I saw everything and the congestion, and everything was cramped up, I was glad that I had a place with lots of space. I enjoyed it.

L: Your tranquil environment, there.

M: I enjoyed it. I had a special environment.

L: Kind of set back in the trees. So, at first the obstetrics were just a part of your general practice. Was there a point where they began to assume a greater weight?

M: Gradually I began to do more obstetrics. I did everything, you know, I did emergencies and lacerations and fractures and everything, set bones and everything. I used to take things out of people’s eyes, steel objects, used to take them out of their nose or their ears. There were all kinds of things that a good, a real country G.P. would do, they don’t do that now, most doctors. They wouldn’t do anything which involves any kind of risk, or anything.

L: Well, at that time, to go to a regular hospital emergency room, they would have had to drive either to Everett or Seattle.

M: Yes. It was in ‘62 that the hospital opened up, seven years later.

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L: Stevens Hospital. So you were your their all-purpose physician. You were well-equipped, you had an ex-ray machine there, you had everything you needed. You were like a small hospital.

M: Yeah, I was.

L: Didn’t you have a partner during part of this time, in your practice?

M: Oh. Not really. Virginia Larson had an office there.

L: She had an office, at the beginning?

M: Yeah, at the beginning.

L: How did you meet her?

M: Oh. We knew her in Seattle, because she was involved in childbirth education. And so we thought when we opened it up, we opened it up for both of us. So she had an office, and I had an office. She had her own office.

L: She was an OB-GYN, or just a GP like you?

M: Well, she was really a GP, but people went to her for OB. Now, I don’t know how long she lasted, Mother will tell you. How long was Virginia Larson with us?

B: Two years.

M: About two years.

L: Why did she leave?

M: She didn’t live there like I did. So she had to come out...

B: She was going to get a house out there, close to the clinic, but she never did. And she had two little boys, rather difficult little boys, to watch. And it was difficult...

M: For her.

L: So she tried it for a couple of years, and it didn’t really work out, so she just moved on. And you never had another partner there?

M: No.

L: You were always a one-man operation.

M: That’s right.

L: You didn’t like being a one-man operation on Whidbey Island. But you just sort of found yourself stuck with it?

M: Well, on Whidbey Island, I was away. But I was at home here, and lived there. As a matter of fact, even if I didn’t see anybody on a Sunday, I wished I had.

L: (Laughs)

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M: I wished there was an emergency on a Sunday.

L: Just so you could see another patient?

M: Yeah.

L: (Laughs) Instead of having to take the entire day off with your family?

M: Generally I had to be around anyway.

L: You had to be on call. Well, I think that in the late ‘60s, there became an increased awareness, or interest in natural childbirth.

M: Well, in the first place, Mother was a teacher. And we had classes. And we had people then coming from different places, you know.

L: And she taught childbirth preparation? When did she start doing that?

M: She did it real early. When did you start doing the childbirth preparation, Barbara?

B: Well, I started helping Virginia down at the Y. I used to help with those classes.

L: That’s when you were still in Seattle?

B: Yes. And then when we got out to Lynnwood, I started helping our own patients, and very soon we started the Childbirth Education League.

L: The Childbirth Education League? That was something you organized yourself?

B: Um-hmm, with some friends. Some patients.

L: I see. There was no other organization at that time.

B: Not in Lynnwood. There was in Seattle.

M: Which we helped start, in Seattle.

L: Was this a national organization?

M: No, just local.

B: The Association for Childbirth Education, in Seattle.

L: I see.

M: Barbara was one of the original founders of Childbirth Education, in Seattle, before we came to Lynnwood, is that not right?

B: No, it was just barely founded when I started.

L: So Mother began teaching classes to train your patients...

M: Or for anybody else.

L: But did it increasingly become a way that people came to Dad, through your classes?

B: Probably.

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M: But a lot of them heard from other people. I had people coming from...it wasn’t just a Lynnwood thing, it was a regional thing we had. So we had people coming from different places.

L: And I guess that when you started doing these things in the ‘50s, it was a relatively small group that was interested in that kind of a delivery. But there was a growth of interest.

M: Yeah, but we did OBs in the fifties, quite a few. I think we did quite a few OBs in the fifties. Because there wasn’t any hospital here, and people come from Seattle or different places, or Whidbey Island, and came here.

L: During the height of your practice, how many babies did you deliver, say in a week?

M: I think that we delivered about how many, about a hundred twenty-five in a year, didn’t we?

B: One of the biggest years was a hundred and fifty.

L: A hundred and fifty in a year. And of course they didn’t come every other day, did they?

B: No, they didn’t space themselves out.

L: So you had a sort of a multi-purpose practice there with people coming in all hours of the day or night, to have babies, or have some stitches sewn up, and all kinds of emergencies, in addition to the coughs, colds, runny noses, and the physical examinations during the day.

M: That’s right. A general all-around practice.

L: So as your practice built up, you had more help, I assume. You had a secretary, usually, did you sometimes have another assistant as well?

M: Yeah, I had a secretary and somebody in the back.

L: To set people up, and take blood pressure and things like that.

M: Yeah.

L: And then Mom was running quite an operation, too, because you boarded patients over.

M: We boarded patients.

L: Just OBs?

M: Yes, just OBs. And I don’t know when we quit keeping them. We kept people for at least ten years, I would think. Wouldn’t you say that? I think that when we came back from California [a sabbatical], we didn’t board them so much then.

B: We lived there for twelve years. And then when we came back, Chaffee had gotten the habit of sending them home in just a few hours. And nothing bad happened.

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Segment 5: Natural childbirth practice; relationship with medical community

L: Okay, Dad, yesterday when we quit, we had been talking about the period of time when you returned from your sabbatical and went back to practice at the Clinic. That was in 1967. Then you were in practice there until what year?

M: 1981.

L: And there was a period of time when you were very popular as a baby doctor, as I recall, you were in a lot of demand. Nowadays its rather taken for granted that to use less drugs in labor is good, and that people should have alternatives to the hospital delivery, but that wasn’t really the general feeling at the time you started doing it.

M: That’s right. We were pioneers, Mother can talk to you about that. We were pioneers. Of the out-of-hospital delivery.

L: Didn’t many of your colleagues feel that what you were doing was crazy, too risky, not good medical practice? Did you get some...

M: A lot of flak. A lot of flak from the establishment and from the other doctors. Mother said “You’re not going to win a popularity contest for what you’re doing.”

L: Why did they feel that your practices were threatening? Why was there such a strong reaction to people having whatever kind of delivery they wanted?

M: Well, they felt that it wasn’t safe practice to deliver out of the hospital.

L: You don’t agree with that?

M: (Pause) What do you think? I think that there’s a rare occasion that you’d be better in a hospital, a rare occasion that you might be.

L: Did you feel like you could usually predict when you had a patient should be hospitalized?

M: It’s unpredictable.

L: How did you equip yourself, if you were going out to a home? How did you prepare yourself for emergencies?

M: Oh? We had a breathing bag and oxygen for the baby, and we had IV fluids.

L: So you had some emergency measures you could take.

M: That’s right.

L: Could you describe a typical, if there is such a thing as a typical scenario, when you went to a home to deliver a baby? At what stage did you hear from them, at what stage would you appear, how did it usually operate?

M: Well, you can’t say at what stage, because people call you at different stages. And not only that, but labor goes at different rates. So sometimes you get there very early.

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L: And then what would you do?

M: Well, you had a job of waiting.

L: That was rather difficult when you were maintaining a day-to-day practice, as well.

M: Yes. If they were any place near here, I left.

L: But sometimes you traveled a distance.

M: That’s right, and sometimes I had a nurse that I left to watch the patient. Sometimes I had an assistant to watch the patient.

L: Was that usual, that you would have an assistant, or were you often just on your own with the patient and the patient’s family?

M: I don’t know, both kinds. You know, I had women working for me.

L: Midwives?

M: Yes, or nurses. Nurse-midwives.

L: Was there any particular way you had the patient prepare the home for the birth?

M: Yes, we had classes.

L: That prepared them physically and instructed them about what to have on hand?

M: Yeah. We had classes.

L: Were the fathers usually involved with that?

M: Oh yes. Almost always.

L: Does anything stand out in your mind as unusual experiences you had as a traveling baby-doctor?

M: (Pause) Yes, I had all kinds of experiences.

L: You were very popular with what we called the “hippies”.

M: The hippies, yeah. That’s right. I also traveled. I went to different places.

L: What were some of the farther distances you traveled?

M: I went to Ferndale, or Tacoma.

L: You took the ferry across to the Olympic Peninsula more than once.

M: That’s right.

L: And you went up to the Cascades, to the commune out at Marblemount.

M: That’s right, I did. That was about a hundred miles away. I didn’t realize it was that far, or I wouldn’t have taken it.

L: And you were pretty remote from a hospital there, weren’t you?

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M: Oh, yeah. And when I went to Quinault, that was remote from a hospital. The first time they ever had a delivery in that area.

B: Since the Indians.

M: That’s right. And I went over to the Peninsula, near Port Townsend, to deliver twins.

B: And then you couldn’t have used the hospital.

L: You wouldn’t have had hospital privileges?

B: The doctors were mad, and they refused to take her.

M: They refused to take care of her if she was going to go to the hospital. Which meant that if I had a problem, I couldn’t have used them, because they would have reported me to the grievance, to the medical association, and I would have been in trouble.

L: Why did you feel compelled to take these risks?

M: I felt that it was a challenge.

L: It was a challenge to provide these people with the kind of delivery they wanted to have?

M: Yeah, it was a challenge.

L: So the risks involved were stimulating to you. Were they sometimes a little more than stimulating? Did you ever have a very serious situation in a home environment?

M: (Pause) Sometimes I’d have a bleed, a post-partum hemorrhage. And in your case, I had a retained placenta.

L: So that’s a bit scary.

M: Yah.

L: But you never had any serious repercussions from any of these home deliveries?

M: No.

L: Do you have any idea how many you performed?

M: I don’t know...probably did about 3000, would you say?

B: Not in the home.

M: Not in the home, but altogether.

B: About 3500 altogether, I guess a third of them were at home? Or a fourth? Maybe 500, 500 to 750 were at home.

M: Most of them were at the Clinic.

L: You probably preferred to do them at the Clinic, I would think.

M: Yeah.

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L: So it didn’t bother you that you were held in bad odor by your colleagues?

M: It didn’t, because I had a clear conscience about what I was doing. Most people had very little funds, and they wouldn’t have large expenses. And also I took care of people regardless of their ability to pay.

L: These people didn’t have medical insurance, and hospital bills would be a hardship.

M: Oh yeah, that’s right.

L: Did you have any serious run-ins with the medical establishment?

M: Yes, they harassed me.

B: All the time.

M: Yes, they always were calling me down for some small thing or another.

L: But this didn’t interfere with your ability to practice?

M: Well, toward the end they took away my hospital privileges, my OB privileges.

L: At Stevens Hospital?

M: (Nods)

L: Was there a particular incident that made them feel justified?

M: Oh, no, not anything special. They mentioned a number of little things. Which they said weren’t up to the standards.

L: I know that you were very much loved and appreciated by the people that used your services...

M: That’s right!

L: So you had sort of a dichotomy here.

M: That’s right. The people who didn’t know me, the doctors, didn’t hold me in very high esteem. And were waiting for me to commit the big mistake.

B: And they had nurses reporting on him.

L: What contact did nurses have?

M: In the hospital delivery room.

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Segment 6: Struggles with anti-Semitism

M: I think there are certain factors, probably in my life, that were important. First place, when I applied to Syracuse University and was rejected. I received a rejection from Syracuse University in 1929, just for liberal arts. What could be simpler than that?

L: You didn’t apply for pre-med?

M: Just its liberal arts college. It doesn’t matter what your major is, or anything like that. That was my first contact with anti-Semitism, formally, and rejections in general.

L: They had a certain quota for Jews, and that was it?

M: I don’t think it was for all schools. It had to do with certain schools. It would be the same if it was Yale, Harvard, or Princeton, or any of those schools. I was reading something in a magazine that came here. They spoke about New Jersey, and how New Jersey is advancing as a state. And they had a picture of Princeton University. The President of Princeton is Irwin Shapiro now. And I said to Barbara, look, the President is Jewish, and there was a time when you couldn’t even enter the school. So that’s how things are changed.

L: So they had no Jews at all at Princeton University? They had a no-Jew policy?

M: Well, I don’t know, no Jews. Maybe, who knows? Maybe they had two percent, or three percent, or something, but they were very rare. And now one is president. And it also discussed Rutgers University. Rutgers had a Jewish president. Here, the two biggest universities in New Jersey, and they’ve both got Jewish presidents.

But I didn’t know until I got rejected that they had this policy.

L: How’d you know that was the reason?

M: I found out after I got in there. Because every time you saw a Jewish student, you said boy you must have been good, how’d you get in here? I’m trying to remember how many there were in the freshman class. Just a handful, I don’t think there were three dozen. It was the same anyplace, unless it was some small school that didn’t amount to anything and would take anybody.

There were so many students, and if you had a problem, there was no one to talk to about a problem. Very cold and lonely. You had no one to talk to.

I had now gone through four years of college. I had a major in chemistry and a minor in biology. I took all of the courses, and I was adrift. I didn’t know where to go from there, so I went no where. Didn’t know what to do, didn’t know where to go. I had nobody to talk to, nobody to counsel me. I should have had someone to say that this is what direction you could do, or should do. That’s open to you. I just didn’t have enough sense at the time to think.

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L: They didn’t have a career center.

M: They didn’t have anything. There was nothing. If you were adrift, you were adrift. If you flunked out, you flunked out, good-bye. If you didn’t get into medical school, nobody gave a damn.

L: If you were initially rejected, how did you get in?

M: Well, I didn’t. I wasted four years.

L: But that was for medical school. You didn’t waste four years getting into Syracuse.

M: No, I got in right away.

L: How did you do that?

M: Well, my principal at the school was Lee Milk, and he was a Syracuse graduate. And I was kind of a favorite. Really, I think he had something to do with my applying to Syracuse. He directed me toward Syracuse because he thought I was a good student and I would do fine. So when I was turned down at Syracuse, he was shocked. He couldn’t understand it.

L: Was he Jewish himself?

M: No, he wasn’t. Not only that, but there was one girl in my class who was accepted at Syracuse, and she was at the bottom of the class. It doesn’t mean much, there were only five kids. To be at the top of a five-kid class isn’t smart, especially. To be at the bottom, I don’t know what that means either. She wasn’t too smart, anyway, she really wasn’t.

But to be rejected, you would think that you’d have to have a bad record, to be rejected. That’s what my folks thought. The fact that their son, that they thought of so much, couldn’t even get accepted at school, in college.

So, he lived on a farm, the principal. It was in the same county, but it was maybe 40 or 50 miles away. In those days, 50 miles was a trip, because they were all small roads. I went to see him, I couldn’t wait, I just drove over to his place. I drove over to him, and I showed him the letter of rejection. He says, “Well, we’ll have to go over and find out about it.”

So we went up there. He and I made the trip. He went to the Director of Admissions. I stayed in the hall. I waited, and then they called me in, and I was accepted. I guess he pled my case.

Now I should have, at that time, made some other adjustment and gone somewhere else. If they don’t want you, the hell with them. But I didn’t have enough brains and enough fortitude.

That’s how it used to be. Everybody was rejected, everybody was turned down.

And Scotland--I didn’t know about Scotland, I just was too naive, because I was in a small town. I didn’t know what other people did. Had I gone to

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college in New York, I’d have known. I’d have known what the Jew boys of New York are doing. They’re going someplace else.

They can’t take in everyone who wants to go. It’s highly competitive. And I think it’s the same--if you have a Jewish name, you won’t get in. I think you’ll be discriminated against.

L: You think so?!

M: I think there’s always discrimination, I can’t get over that. There’s always discrimination.

Morris and Barbara Gold, AMA Convention, 1958