The Jesus Doctor

In some ways he was just another country doctor. Of course, it was hard to find any other kind in the Mississippi Delta in the 1920s and '30s. With there being hospitals only in the larger towns like Vicksburg and Greenville, the country doctor was always the first, and in most cases the last, medical person anyone would see when illness or injury struck. It would be hard to overrate their importance.

Doc Smith was one of these and, from the many stories I've heard, one of the best. Most of his patients were black farm workers--tenants on the large cotton plantations. Because of his success in treating their many ills, his fame spread by word of mouth throughout this strata of the population. It was among them that he was known as "The Jesus Doctor."

He also enjoyed an excellent reputation in the medical community. When his patients needed an operation, Doc would send them to one of the hospitals in Greenville or Vicksburg. Along with the patient went instructions as to what the surgeon needed to cut on or take out. Early in his practice, the hospitals would run their own tests to confirm Doc Smith's diagnosis. After a time they realized he was never wrong. So they quit wasting time on tests and just followed his instructions. Among these specialists he was said to be the finest diagnostic physician they'd ever known.

Doc Smith was my uncle. He had married Olivia, one of Daddy's sisters. All the kids called him "Uncle Doc," and he was just "Doc" to the grownups. I can't recall ever hearing his first name.

His office was located in Panther Burn. I am told that it got its name from the panthers that lived in the big forests in its early years and from a family named Burn who lived in the area. I'm not sure there were ever any real panthers, but there was probably some type of wildcat around that the early settlers called panthers.

Panther Burn was not a town; it was a plantation village. It was situated on the west side of Highway 61, the old Delta highway, between the highway and the tracks of the Illinois Central Railroad. A wide gravel road bordered by large pecan and oak trees ran from the highway to the tracks. There were two or three houses for plantation supervisors and a large plantation store. Doc's office was situated across from the store near the railroad tracks. It was not his. He had some arrangement with Panther Burn Plantation for its use.

The brown, wood-framed office was not very elaborate. It had two small waiting rooms--one for white, the other for colored--two examining rooms, a small reception area, and a small room filled with medicines. Since there were no drug stores close by, Doc was pharmacist as well as physician. On busy days the large shade trees served as extensions of the waiting rooms.

The majority of Doc's patients came by Greyhound bus or train. Panther Burn was a whistle stop on the railroad and, of course, the bus would stop anyplace along the highway. Patients would generally arrive in the morning, get treated, and catch the bus or train back home in the afternoon or evening. Others might come on foot, by mules, or wagon. It was rare to find a black farm-worker who owned or had access to a car.

Since it was so hard for the blacks to get to him during the week, Doc's office was open all day Saturday and Sunday afternoon. His day off was sometime during the week.

Doc and Olivia lived a couple of miles north of Panther Burn on the east side of Highway 61. They had a nice brick house on five or six acres. They had a large garden, raised chickens, and kept a milk cow as most people did. The house had an indoor bathroom, the first I ever saw.

Olivia was a social climber. Her overriding ambition was to "break into Delta society," and to her, "appearances" were very important. For instance, Doc usually hired someone to milk and tend to the cow. On occasions when the person quit or didn't show up, Olivia had to milk. She would put on a large, floppy hat and baggy work pants and shirt in hopes that anyone seeing her wouldn't recognize her, and then go to the barn before daylight and after dark as added insurance. One morning she did not get an early enough start and one of her friends came by before she finished milking. She hid out in the barn until they left.

Doc was just the opposite. He was just as unpretentious as Olivia was pretentious. His manner was sometimes gruff and abrupt, but he had a soft heart. He liked hunting, fishing, and drinking, and liked being right where he was. He had no desire to "build a big house in town."

"Town" was Hollandale, which was situated about ten miles north on 61. It had two traffic lights and, by the standards of the day, was quite a thriving Delta metropolis. Hollandale was Olivia's residential goal, but Doc resisted for many years.

Olivia attended church in Hollandale where she was a very active member of the Missionary Society. Of course, this was the largest church in town and the one most of the socially prominent families attended. Most of the womenfolk of these families were Missionary Society members as well. Thus, the stage was set for Olivia's Missionary Society garden party. She intended to host an event that Hollandale's social leaders would never forget. She ended up doing just that but not exactly the way she intended.

She recruited Doc and my father to be waiters. They were charged with supervising the food and punch and the several cooks, busboys, and dishwashers Olivia assembled for the event.

The setting was like a picture out of a society magazine; a large, shady side yard surrounded by newly trimmed privet hedges, with perfect weather, white-clothed tables scattered among the trees, and flowers everywhere.

While the women were meeting in the house, Doc, Daddy, and their crew were putting the finishing touches on the food and drink. As they mixed the punch in the large silver punch bowl, Doc would take a sip from time to time. After one of these sips, he remarked, "You know, Luke, this would be pretty good punch if it had about a fifth of bourbon mixed in." As they finished the punch and busied themselves with other preparations, Daddy got to thinking about Doc's comment; and knowing where Doc stashed his liquor, got a bottle of it and managed to get it into the bowl without attracting any attention.

The party itself turned out to be a smashing success. The food was excellent, the service superb, but the punch seemed to be the crowning achievement. Everyone had to have seconds and thirds and some several cups beyond. They all raved about it and told Olivia it was the best punch they'd ever had. She had not had any herself since she was so busy being hostess, so she had no inkling as to why the punch was so popular.

As the guests were in the process of draining the punch bowl, Doc sidled up to Daddy and whispered, "Didn't I tell you, Luke? That fifth I put in really capped it off." The look on Daddy's face told him the answer to his next question even before he asked it. "Good gosh, Luke, don't tell me you put one in, too?"

Doc knew that two fifths of bourbon had made much too strong a mixture for just about anybody and especially for the ones who didn't drink. But it was too late to do anything about it. He knew they were going to have some drunk women on their hands, and he was right.

Things stayed under control pretty well until the party broke up and the women had to drive home. The first three or four made it down the long driveway and between the gateposts, although one turned left and headed toward Vicksburg and one turned right too quickly and ran off into the bar-ditch beside the highway. A later traveler took down one of the gateposts and a couple of sections of the front fence. Others had a great deal of trouble getting their cars turned about and headed out the drive. They got out into various non-driving areas and several of Olivia's flower beds, shrubs, and small trees became casualties.

Since they had never been drunk before, these women couldn't understand why their legs, arms, and cars seemed to disobey all rational commands. But it didn't take Olivia long to put together what the cause was. Needless to say, Doc and Daddy were in Olivia's doghouse for a mighty long time.

Doc Smith
In that day and time, all doctors made house calls, and Doc Smith was no exception. In addition to these regular rounds, he was subject to being summoned for emergencies. Since there were no phones in the country, somebody had to come and get him when he was needed to deliver a baby or treat an injury. Doc Smith delivered both my brother and me at home. There was another time when Daddy had to go get him to put me back together. To this day I'm grateful that he was as good a doctor as he was.

We were living on a new-ground farm back in a low part of the Delta toward the river. Because water would cover the land ever so often, our house was built up on pilings about four or five feet off the ground. I was two years old and some months. I don't know just how many. I know that we are not supposed to have memories of things that happen when we're that young, but the incident is still vivid in my mind. I don't remember anything that happened after it but I do remember the fall. I was going up our front steps and something behind me--perhaps a noise, a call, a dog barking--caught my attention. I looked back over my left shoulder but kept on walking up the steps veering to the right as I walked. A step or so from the top I stepped out into space. As I fell, I instinctively threw my right arm out to break my fall. I landed with all my weight on that arm. The elbow splintered, bones came out of the skin and stuck in the soft earth. I remember crying, but I don't remember the pain. Daddy picked me up and sat me up on the porch. Mama came running up and I heard Daddy say, "It's broke. I'll go get Doc." Beyond that, everything about the incident is blank.

Daddy brought Doc back with him and they laid me on the kitchen table. Mama held chloroform to my nose while Daddy assisted Doc. Without the help of x-rays, pins, wires, screws, or all the other things orthopedic surgeons consider indispensable today, Doc Smith took his hands and pushed the broken pieces around until he got them lined up where he thought they should be. He sterilized the gashes where the bones came out, sewed them up, and put on a splint.

When the splint came off, everything seemed to work fine, but my arm was a little crooked. Instead of angling away from my body my forearm angled in. My parents decided to let well enough alone and not attempt any further fixing. Time has proven that decision to be correct. I've thrown just about every kind of ball there is with it and done every kind of lifting and never had a problem, except for having to try to explain to a whole bunch of Army doctors that it really did function. One flatly told me even after I bent it every possible way that any elbow put together that way could not work.

Today, more than sixty years later, when I think about what Doc Smith did that day on that kitchen table, I'm truly amazed. I wonder how many of our modern physicians could duplicate that feat.

Olivia Took Her Place
On those Sunday afternoons when Doc's regular office person was not available, Olivia took her place. She would keep track of the patients and work them in for examinations. If they needed any medicine, Doc would write out what medicine they were to have along with the directions for taking it and give this to Olivia. If the patient or any family member could read, she would type out a label, stick it on the box or bottle, and collect for the medicine and office call. She was performing these duties one Sunday afternoon when the following event occurred.

The train had just stopped, which meant that more patients were arriving. Two or three had come in when a large clamor arose in the colored waiting room. Olivia stepped into the room to be confronted with an unusual sight. A large black woman was leading an entourage of litter bearers who were carrying an even larger black man on a homemade stretcher. With a voice that could be heard in the next county, the woman was shouting, "Let us in, let us in. My man is bad off. We's done brung him a long way to see 'de Jesus Doctor. Oh, please, kin we see 'de Jesus Doctor?"

By this time Doc had come out of one of the examining rooms to see what the commotion was. When the woman saw him, she clasped her hands to her breast and began to wail, "Oh, Doctor, Doctor, please hep my man! We knows dat if anybody kin hep 'im, you kin. Kin you hep 'im, Doctor, kin you hep 'im?"

Doc walked over to the man who had been deposited in the middle of the waiting room floor. He walked around him looking at him from all angles before he said gruffly, "Well, I don't know. He looks to be pretty far gone. But take him in there and put him on the table and I'll see what I can do."

Doc examined him and prescribed some medicine. As he handed the slip to Olivia, he said to the woman, "You give him this medicine, and if he's still alive in two weeks, bring him back." She left clutching the bottle of medicine, leading her small caravan toward the railroad to flag the next train back home.

Olivia was again helping out two weeks later when the man returned. He walked in with his wife who was full of loud praises for '"de Jesus Doctor." When Doc saw them, his greeting was, "Well, I see you didn't die."

"Oh, no sir, no sir," replied his wife. "Jes" look how much better he is. I tol' 'im I knew'd you'd cure 'im if he jes' do what you say. But, Doctor, it ain't been easy. He didn't wanna drink all dat water, but I made 'im. I made 'im drink every drap of it."

The statement about the water puzzled Doc. He picked up the nearly empty bottle of medicine the woman had brought back and read the label. He turned toward Olivia and gave her a look over the top of his glasses that made her blood run cold, for in that instant she realized what she had done.

The directions should have read, "Take two teaspoons three times a day in a glass of water." However, on the day the man was carried in, Doc had seen several women with vaginal infections whose directions for their douche solutions read, "two teaspoons three times a day in a gallon of water." Olivia had mistakenly used those directions and had the unfortunate man drinking a gallon of water at one sitting three times a day.

Doc sat for minute or two and then said to the man, "You're not well yet, but you're going to be. I'm glad to see that you can follow directions and do what I want you to do. I'm going to give you some more medicine, and because you're doing so well, I'm going to cut back on the water."

The man almost fell on his knees in gratitude. "Thank you, Doctor, thank you! I sho 'preciates it. I done had 'bout all the water I wants for a while."

After they left, Olivia said that Doc took her into the medicine room and gave her a chewing out she never forgot. She also admitted that she deserved every word of it. And that was one mistake she never made again.

Coon Hunting With Daddy
Doc Smith liked to fish, but he loved to hunt. He concentrated mostly on deer, quail, and coon. I especially liked it when he went coon hunting with Daddy. He would close his office, make his house calls, and arrive sometime after we had finished supper. He'd go into one of the bedrooms and change into his hunting clothes and bring his "supper" into the kitchen. It was always the same potted meat, vienna sausage, and soda crackers. Mama would give him a big glass of milk to drink, or, if she had churned recently, buttermilk with corn bread. Doc would always share his store-bought supper with my brother and me. We never had things like potted meat or vienna sausage in our pantry, so it was a real treat for us. I often begged Mama to buy some, but she never did, saying it was "just junk made from all the poor and leftover parts of the pig and cow and not fittin' to eat." She was probably right, but her assessment did not reduce my craving for this exotic food.

By the time Doc had finished eating, several more men would have arrived with their coon dogs. Daddy would get Ol' Raymond, our red-bone coon hound, and they would head off to the woods. I never knew when they came back because it would be long after my bedtime, but Daddy would entertain us the next day with stories about the hunt whose dog had run well, how many coons they'd treed, the big ones that outsmarted the dogs, and other related tales.

On one hunt, Doc was unusually fatigued. He'd probably been delivering babies or treating patients for several nights without much rest. After they turned the dogs loose, Doc leaned up against a tree and went sound asleep. The men heard the dogs strike a trail and listened as the coon brought them back in their direction. They got closer and closer and treed the coon about forty yards away. The men went over, shined the coon's eyes, and shot him out of the tree. Then they went back and woke up Doc, who was still leaning against the tree snoring loudly. He was quite embarrassed when he learned that he had slept through the first coon of the evening.

Delta Society
Doc died at a relatively young age. I suppose he was somewhere in his early fifties. Too many long, irregular hours, too many days of non-eating or eating potted meat and crackers, too many 16-hour days combined with nights of hunting or drinking, too much pushing by Olivia to move into town and up in society all took their toll. No one really said what killed him, but I would guess it was his heart combined with any number of other things.

At last, Olivia had her big house in town. Doc had finally given in after the many years of resistance. The house was Olivia's pride and joy. Doc lived less than a year after the move. Perhaps death was a better alternative for him than Delta society.

His body was brought to the new house in a beautiful coffin and placed in the living room. It was there that family and friends would pay their last respects. That's the way it was done in those days. At night the family went to bed, while menfolk, both family members and friends taking turns, sat with the body all night. That's also the way it was done.

On the second morning, Daddy got there fairly early just as Olivia was getting up. He asked her, "Olivia, have you looked out at the back yard?"

She looked rather puzzled as she moved to one of the back windows. "Why no, Luke. What's there to see out there?"
When she pulled the draperies aside, a most unusual picture greeted her. The large back yard was nearly filled with black people-- the farm tenants whom Doc Smith had doctored on for over two decades. They stood in clusters of four or five talking in hushed voices dressed in the clothing of their calling--blue denim overalls, work shirts, blue denim jumper jackets, heavy work shoes or boots. The fine, misty rain ran off the brims of their slouchy felt hats or caps and onto their shoulders, turning the denim a darker shade of blue. Their feet were muddy, and it was obvious that some had walked a long way that morning. They were all in the back yard. In Mississippi in 1940, it would have been improper for a black person to come to the front yard or front door of the white person.

"Now," Daddy said, taking Olivia by the arm, "come look out front." They went to the front bay windows which gave a good view of the street. As far as they could see in both directions, there were other black folk just like the ones in the back yard walking toward the house.

It had not yet dawned on Olivia what was happening. "What do they want, Luke? Why are they coming?"

"Olivia, they've come to say good-bye to Doc."
"But I can't let them come in the house. All that mud would ruin my carpet."

With that, Daddy just about exploded. "What do you mean, you can't let them come in?! I'll go get something to put over the carpet or you can have the carpet cleaned. One thing you're not going to do is deprive them of paying their respects to Doc. You owe them at least that much."

Daddy did cover the carpet with something, and for all that day, Olivia's new house was filled with the people Doc had spent his life helping. They shuffled slowly past the open casket, each one pausing for just a moment. With stooped shoulders, bowed heads, and hats clutched to their chests, they paid their last respects. Some whispered a few words, some moved their lips . . . but no sound came out. Some extended a hand, others just stood silently as tears ran down their weathered cheeks.

The preacher said some nice things about Doc at the funeral. The obituary and article in the newspaper were equally laudatory. His many friends and relatives said some wonderful things as well. But, to this day, I think the greatest tribute paid to Doc Smith was the backyard full of black folk who walked many miles in the mud and rain just to say good-bye to "the Jesus Doctor."

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