Oral History Program Wesley H. Anderson Interviewed by Mack S. Taft circa 1960s Oral History Program Weber State University Stewart Library Ogden, Utah Wesley H. Anderson Interviewed by Mack S. Taft circa 1960s Copyright © 2016 by Weber State University, Stewart Library iii Mission Statement The Oral History Program of the Stewart Library was created to preserve the institutional history of Weber State University and the Davis, Ogden and Weber County communities. By conducting carefully researched, recorded, and transcribed interviews, the Oral History Program creates archival oral histories intended for the widest possible use. Interviews are conducted with the goal of eliciting from each participant a full and accurate account of events. The interviews are transcribed, edited for accuracy and clarity, and reviewed by the interviewees (as available), who are encouraged to augment or correct their spoken words. The reviewed and corrected transcripts are indexed, printed, and bound with photographs and illustrative materials as available. The working files, original recording, and archival copies are housed in the University Archives. Project Description The Great Depression in Weber County, Utah, is an Oral History Project by Mack S. Taft for completion of his Master’s Thesis at Utah State University during the summer of 1969. The forty-five interviews address the Great Depression through the eyes of individuals in several different occupations including: Bankers, Laborers, Railroad Workers, Attorneys, Farmers, Educators, Businessmen, Community and Church Leaders, Housewives, Children and Physicians. All of these individuals lived in Weber County from 1929 to 1941. The interviews were based on what they remembered about the depression, how they felt about those events and how it affected their life then and now. ____________________________________ Oral history is a method of collecting historical information through recorded interviews between a narrator with firsthand knowledge of historically significant events and a well-informed interviewer, with the goal of preserving substantive additions to the historical record. Because it is primary material, oral history is not intended to present the final, verified, or complete narrative of events. It is a spoken account. It reflects personal opinion offered by the interviewee in response to questioning, and as such it is partisan, deeply involved, and irreplaceable. ____________________________________ Rights Management This work is the property of the Weber State University, Stewart Library Oral History Program. It may be used freely by individuals for research, teaching and personal use as long as this statement of availability is included in the text. It is recommended that this oral history be cited as follows: Anderson, Wesley H., an oral history by Mack S. Taft, circa 1960s, WSU Stewart Library Oral History Program, University Archives, Stewart Library, Weber State University, Ogden, UT. 1 Abstract: This is an oral history interview with Dr. Wesley H. Anderson. Dr. Anderson recalls his education as a physician and beginning a private practice during the Depression. He practiced for the Union Pacific and Southern Pacific Railroads, the Magna smelters, and also covered local doctors' practices. He discusses taking produce for pay, paying house calls, and compares early medical practice to modern practice, including the threat of malpractice lawsuits. The interviewer is Mack Taft. MT: Where did you live during the Depression, from 1929-39? WA: I was at the University of Utah from 1929, graduated from there in 1933, and then went back to the University of Pennsylvania, and graduated there in 1935. Then I came to Ogden and interned at the Dee Hospital in 1935-36 and started to practice. I practiced with the railroad, was the physician for both the Union Pacific and the Southern Pacific Railroad, and was head physician for Weber College. I also carried on a private practice covering most everybody's practice in town when they were on vacation. This was in the Depression years, so a lot of the doctors went on vacation. And then, in 1937, after practicing for one year, I left for Chicago. I did a residency at the University of Chicago in pediatrics. And I spent 1937 until late 1939 in residency at the University of Chicago, and then returned to Ogden in late 1939. MT: What were the problems confronted by a young doctor starting out at that time as opposed to a young doctor starting out now? WA: Well, the problem, I suppose then, as now, we had actually too much to do, especially in my case. We started out, got married shortly after I finished my 2 internship and started out on our honeymoon, and got as far as a ranch up in Kamas Valley. We were going up through the northwest, and I was called there by a doctor in Magna who was head of the smelter operations for Kennecott - for the Magna smelters, so we didn't go on a honeymoon. After practicing there for six weeks, I came to Ogden and went into practice with Dr. Morrell and worked there for years. So I really didn't have any problems starting off. I was so busy. It almost killed me off that first year. I worked day and night. I worked for everyone that went on vacation. I was quite well known here because, of our group of interns, I was the only one who stayed in Ogden, and I had a lot of friends. Dr. Bartlett and some of the leading doctors took vacations. I delivered more babies in Ogden that year than any other doctor, and got paid practically nothing because I left on a residency as it was Depression times. In those days a delivery fee was $35, and I didn't average $5 or $10. I'd deliver both in the home and in the hospital. Very often we'd deliver four babies per night. I remember we joined a couple of clubs here. We tried to go to a movie, and having that railroad work - Dr. Morrell's mother was dying in Logan and he was out of town most of the time - I didn't get to see one movie through that year. We didn't get to one party where I could stay through completely. So I was very happy to get out of town after one year. However, I believe after we left - I left Mrs. Anderson to clean up our debts - I think we landed in Chicago with about $9,000, which was pretty good in Depression times, for one year and just starting out. 3 MT: You would have done exceptionally well then, if your collections would have been good. WA: Well, it was pretty good then... But I didn't collect for a third of the work I did. MT: Was there anything particular about the economy, or anything of this nature, that induced you to go back for further training? WA: Well, it was mainly the massive amount of work, of day and night work that I wanted to get away from. I thought that it would be easier to specialize. I learned in my residency that I loved working with the children. I didn't mind working with them all day long. Surgery sort of upset me. Obstetrics I despised after delivering that many babies. So I just loved to work with children. So when I got the chance that came mainly through Dr. Morrell, who was a classmate of the head of the American Academy of Pediatrics, he lined me up with a residency. I learned an awful lot from both he and Dr. Bartlett. I worked with them both. I worked in both their offices. As a matter of fact, I worked in Dr. Morrell's office. That was my main office. I worked in Dr. Bartlett's office, Dr. Bill Brown's office, Dr. Sideman's office, and quite a lot of work for Dr. Jensen, so I covered about five of the six busiest doctors in Ogden. As I mentioned, the obstetrics charge for a patient at the hospital was about $15 at that time, and now it's between $200 -300. The doctor's fee was $35, and now it's between $200 and $300. House calls would be $3-5, office calls were $3. There was an awful lot of work, always very enjoyable, of course. Then, when we came back to Ogden, and I went back with Dr. Bartlett after that, and was expecting to go in the army. They kept turning me down about 4 every year because I had a little [heart] murmur. So I practiced with him for five years rather than set up an office, thinking that I would be going in the army. They'd call me up every six months, and then tell me to come back in another six months. So when things started to get a little better, after they invaded Europe, I had always wanted to go into pediatrics, and so I set up my office down in the First Security Bank Building. MT: Were there any lessons taught by the Depression years that you feel you learned, or that were learned by others around you? WA: Well, we've always lived quite conservatively. I'm sure all the doctors that went through that Depression are very conservative, no big boats, etc. We did build a little swimming pool, the first one in Ogden, a private pool. It was supposed to cost us $1,500 and it ended up costing us $3,500. But other than that, we drive our cars longer, and try to buy better cars than most of these young fellows. I don't know, I imagine most of the doctors know how to manage their affairs, and I don't think any of them had any financial problems that I remember around that time. MT: Are you aware of anything through that time involved with the script, and the farmers using their produce to pay their bills? WA: No, I think that came before my time. I don't remember anything about that. Oh, we had a lot of vegetables and things brought to us, but of course we still get them from the people out on the farms. From this time of the year on, we get all the vegetables and fruits that we can eat from patients. We used to have our own garden out here that we raised, but it got a little too much for us, and so we put it 5 all into grass and trees. I never remember [being] financially pinched during that time. Of course, when I was in school, I always had a job during that time, never ever got paid more than 50 cents an hour. I was on a scholarship, a football scholarship, and got paid 50 cents an hour as the janitor at the medical school... I got back in Pennsylvania in the microbiology lab and got paid 50 cents an hour. At that time, back in Philadelphia, we were very fortunate, of course, because we got board and room for $25 a month, and excellent board and room. During those years we always had plenty to eat and plenty to wear. I never had a car, like some of those fellows did. Some of the boys' fathers would buy them a new car every year. MT: Were you affected at all by the crash of the stock market in 1929? WA: No, we didn't. The banks closed, but that was the only thing. I didn't have much money in the bank. My folks had a little money in bank stock, and I think that they had to pay double for that bank stock. It practically broke my folks. Fortunately my mother was a school teacher, too, which helped. I probably wouldn't have gotten through medical school because it practically broke them. That was the Grantsville Deseret Bank. At that time, when the banks closed, of course we didn't have any money. I moved in with a doctor's family in Salt Lake. He was an internist down there at the Salt Lake Clinic, also president of the board of regents. I just moved in with their family, and they bought me clothes and furnished me free board and room. And then I worked at the medical school as a janitor, so I had practically no expenses, so I made my way all right. When I went 6 back East, I had to borrow money at 5 percent. I think I got some money from the university and an unknown donor. I think it came from the people I lived with, but they didn't want me to know. But I paid it back to the president of the university, so I didn't know who it was, but I'm almost sure. MT: Do you think of anything else that happened to you in your travels at that time, or any other experiences that might be of interest? WA: Well, I used to on Saturday afternoon - Dr. Bartlett had a lot of old patients, old people, and a lot of them were in for heart failure. And they'd fill up with fluid in their abdomen and chest and have to be tapped, drained once a week. Well, it would be unheard of to do in the home in this day and age, but then they had no antibiotics, practically. I would start out about 2 p.m., and I'd make about seven taps. I'd put needles in their abdomen and chest and drain off a gallon of fluid, and give them a shot of salagin, which would stimulate their kidneys, and then they could breathe for a week. Nowadays, if you asked one of these young doctors to do it in the home, they would think that was the craziest thing they could do... think they would sure get infection, but they didn't get any infection. But that's where I spent from 2 every Saturday afternoon... These people would just, for a year or more than a year... In most cases, they had practically no emergency room. These people couldn't get to an emergency room. A lot of them didn't have transportation. MT: What problems do you see now that are different from the problems you had then? Is it more common now for people to sue for malpractice? 7 WA: Well, I'm sure it is, and I don't know exactly why this has been brought on. We, as physicians, have always said that there are too many hungry lawyers around, you know. And I don't quite ever remember [hearing] of very few malpractice suits in those days. I remember once I heard of a doctor that I was working with, an attorney called him up and said a client wanted to sue him for some fracture or something. And the doctor said, "Well, if you do, I'll fight you for as long as I live." They were supposed to be good friends. In all my younger days, that's the only thing I heard on malpractice. And he didn't ever sue this guy. He was a leading attorney here in Ogden. And whether it was justified or not, I'm sure it wasn't, because the woman kept coming into the office, who had the injured arm. Our malpractice insurance in those days was about $15 and then it went up to $40 for quite a number of years, and mine jumped to $450 last year. This year it will be $520 some odd dollars, and I've never had anyone ever threaten, but you still have the insurance. MT: Do you feel in the medical profession that there are more precautions taken that maybe wouldn't need to be taken except for this reason? WA: Oh, I'm sure there are 100 percent more than are necessary, probably, just because of malpractice. And that's one thing that I think has run the medical costs up so high, the medical insurance, doctors' insurance, they just pass it on. That's the only thing they can do and survive. So I think it's just an awful situation. Malpractice has gone for some of these plastic surgeons - Dr. Jarrett told me his malpractice insurance rate is $1,000 this year. And malpractice in Seattle for a neurosurgeon is $7,000 to $10,000 a year. And across the border, 8 over in Victoria, it is $70 a year. So you can tell - and all these fellows are trained in the same universities - so you can tell that it - they're all trained in the same way and treat their patients in the same way, and on one side of the border they pay $70 and on the other side, they pay $7,000 to $10,000. So it's a treacherous thing. I think the government ought to do something about it. I don't know why this has been brought on like that. Oh, I'm sure that with all this high cost of medicine... a lot of people are hurt because the expenses are so great. It makes them kind of want to sue, I suppose, and then it just rises all the time. Personally, I think that the government will do something; they'll have to.