Dr. William Thomas Meeks Sr. Town and country doctor

Continuing the stories of outstanding doctors who practiced medicine in Union County in the past (Dr. Edge and Dr. Rogers), we turn our attention this week to Dr. William Thomas Meeks, Sr. He might be labeled both a "town and country" doctor, having an office in his home just west of town toward Blue Ridge, and also making house calls throughout the county.

William Thomas Meeks was born August 26, 1874. He was twelve years of age when his father, John Wellborn Meeks, moved to Union County in 1886. The family farmed. The elder Mr. Meeks wanted as good an education as possible for his sons, Jesse and William, so after finishing the local school, they went to the Hiawassee Academy founded by the noted Baptist preacher cousins, Dr. George W. Truett and Dr. Fernando Coello McConnell. There the brothers would have "batched,"- that is, found a place to board and provide their own meals as they attended classes.

When William Thomas Meeks was in his early twenties, he went out to Arizona to find a job so that he could earn enough money to pay off the mortgage on the family farm. It is assumed that he reached this goal, for he returned to Blairsville and worked for awhile as a carpenter, helping to build the "old" court house on the square.

William Meeks and Dollie Adeline Colwell (1885-1987) began their courtship which culminated in their marriage in 1908. Meeks had long harbored a dream to become a doctor. In 1912, with his wife and young son, John Jacob (who was born prematurely October 23, 1908 weighing 2 pounds, 8 ounces, and was kept "incubated" in a shoe box, watched carefully and warmed by a wood stove), the family moved to Atlanta and he began studies at the old Atlanta School of Physicians and Surgeons.

Life was hard as they lived on Highland Avenue in Atlanta. Mrs. Meeks kept a cow and sold milk to neighbors. The cow also provided milk for the Meeks family, which had increased by another son, William Thomas, Jr., born October 1, 1914.

While not in classes at the medical college (which became Emory University School of Medicine the year Dr. Meeks graduated in 1915), he cut trees for the Coca Cola Company, and the couple sold Bibles for a publishing company.

Dr. Meeks had a desire to serve among his own people in Union County, so they returned to set up his practice. He made house calls, riding a black horse in all sorts of weather to see his patients over a wide area of the county. The story is told that at times the weather was so cold Mrs. Meeks had to use hot water or a hammer to melt or break up the ice formed on the stirrups so that Dr. Meeks could dismount from his horse upon his return from calls.

The third Meeks son was born in Blairsville March 23, 1918 and named Jack Littleton.

A major flu epidemic struck in 1918. It was just prior to this period that the Meeks family moved from Union County to Hall County and set up his practice in the mill village of New Holland. Several people from Union County had already moved there seeking employment in the cotton mills. He delivered babies and tended the sick. On his house calls, especially during the flu epidemic, he went from house to house up and down the streets trying to help the desperately ill people. It was reported that he delivered more babies than any doctor in Hall County, Georgia between the years of 1918 and 1935 when he practiced there.

As she did while they were in Atlanta, Dollie Meeks made sure her family had what they needed to eat. She had a chicken lot and kept fryers and hens that provided meat and eggs for her family.

The fourth Meeks son, Charles Edward, was born October 2, 1921 while the family lived in Hall County.

In 1935, Dr. Meeks moved his family back to Union County. He maintained an office in his home where he saw patients. He continued house calls, using a Model A Ford for transportation on the poor roads. Only one paved road went through the county at that time, what is now Highway 129 from Neel Gap to the North Carolina line (opened in 1925). Other roads were dirt, and often impassable in winter weather. Many a time, Dr. Meeks had to get a farmer with his team to pull his Model A through the mud. He often parked it and walked a distance to the house where he went to deliver a baby or to attend the sick.

The good doctor suffered a stroke in 1944. He did not recover, and died July 10, 1944. He was interred at the new Blairsville Cemetery. Mrs. Dollie Adeline Colwell Meeks lived until January 23, 1987.

The sons had distinguished careers but none of them followed their father into medical practice. John lived in Charleston, SC where he owned a furniture and moving business. He died in 1988. William T. Meeks, Jr., better known as Bill, graduated from the University of Georgia and returned to Union County where he became a farmer, merchant and legislator. Jack Littleton graduated from Georgia School of Technology with a chemical engineering degree. After a stint with the US Navy in which he reached the rank of Commander, he got a job with the Clorox Company and worked as chemist, plant manager, and regional manager. Charles Edward graduated from Georgia Tech in chemical engineering and held positions with various chemical manufacturing companies, the latest being in Lock Haven, PA with Quantum Chemicals until his retirement in 1988.

Today, Meeks Park in Union County stands as a monument to this family who were honorable and productive citizens.

[The major resource for this article was the "Dr. William Thomas Meeks, Sr." story in The Heritage of Union County, 1994, page 236.]

c 2007 by Ethelene Dyer Jones; published Feb. 8, 2007 in The Union Sentinel, Blairsville, GA. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Noted country doctor Dr. William H. Rogers

Union County citizens of a past generation owe a debt of gratitude to exemplary country doctors like Dr. Herbert Monroe Edge (subject of last week's column) and Dr. William H. Rogers, each of whom practiced for over fifty years among the country people they loved.

William H. Rogers was born July 27, 1872 in Union County, just seven years after the end of the Civil War. He was educated in one-room schools in the county. Having a desire to become a doctor, he entered and graduated from Southern Medical College in Atlanta and from Emory University School of Medicine. While he was still in medical school, he married the love of his life, Frances Iowa Reid, a Union County girl.

To this couple were born nine children, six sons and three daughters: Bessie, George Reid, Roy, Franklin Randall, Andy Ralph, Lucille, Rain, Nora Lee, and W. H. The Rogers family lived in the Young Cane District of Union County.

Dr. Rogers' long years of service to his home county brought memorable rewards, none of which he sought but which he received by virtue of his unselfish work. He received Presidential Citations for his service to the war efforts during both World War I and World War II. The American Medical Association recognized Dr. Rogers for fifty years of outstanding service.

He saw the need of his own people in Union County for better medical service, and returned to his home county where he practiced for over fifty years. With his medical bag and compassionate personality, he went to country homes to deliver hundreds of babies and to give treatment and medications to young and old. He rode miles on his horse, and then after the advent of the automobile, he bumped along dusty and muddy country roads to meet the demands of a full and burgeoning practice.

Dr. Rogers died February 23, 1959 and was laid to rest in the Confidence United Methodist Church Cemetery in Lower Young Cane. His beloved wife, Frances Iowa Reid Rogers (born December 13, 1877) had preceded her husband in death on September 27, 1958.

The Rev. Claude Patterson gave the eulogy at Dr. Rogers' funeral. He related how Dr. Rogers had a moving religious experience when he was a lad, and often gave public testimony to his love for Christ and the Lord's leadership in his life.

"He was indeed one of us," the Rev. Patterson said. "He could rightly be called 'The Missionary Doctor' for he was a missionary to many of us. The weather was never too bad, the night never too dark, to deter his errands of mercy. The family was never too poor for him to minister to them. The roads were never so rough that he didn't manage somehow to get to his patient. Many times he [went] to his sick neighbor when his own body was racked with pain, or [he] was near exhaustion from long hours in the saddle or at the wheel of his little automobile. He lived a sacrificial life."

The eulogy praised him as 'The Good Samaritan' who bound up physical wounds and ministered to spiritual needs as well.

Several descendants of this good doctor still live in Union County. And, beyond that, many of the babies at whose birth he was the attending physician can be thankful that they got a good start in life from this country doctor's ministrations.

[Sources used for this article: Sketches of Union County History, Volume 2, pages 95- 96. The Heritage of Union County, page 278.]

c 2007 by Ethelene Dyer Jones; published Jan. 25, 2007 in The Union Sentinel, Blairsville, GA. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Respected mountain doctor, Herbert Monroe Edge

Dr. Herbert Monroe Edge (1892-1974) was a respected mountain doctor whose care for many people throughout Union County was memorable.

I remember Dr. Edge as a kindly man who attended my mother in the last period of her life. Making house calls was still in vogue in the years when he practiced. If he was at our house near mealtime, my father always invited him to eat with us. I can remember that I, as a "child cook," would feel that our country fare, and especially my inept cooking, would not be good enough for this noted man, our family doctor. But after he prayed the blessing, he always ate with relish and appreciation whatever we served him from our garden and farm.

I was often beset with sore throats (needing a tonsillectomy which I had several years later). My father would instruct me to get off the school bus at Dr. Edge's house and have him "paint" my throat with iodine, a procedure I dreaded with a passion. But with that treatment, and other medications Dr. Edge would administer, I would walk the distance to the high school from his house and my sore throat would be bearable. Dad would, in turn, stop later to pay Dr. Edge for my doctor's visit. It was just such a trusting relationship that Dr. Edge had with his patients and their families.

Dr. Edge was not born in Union County, but he had Union County ties. He was born in Lake City, Fla., September 21, 1892. His father was John B. Edge and his mother was Laura Ann Owenby Edge. John Edge was a businessman, operating a large store in Lake City. He also had business interests in Blairsville. It was at Ivy Log that John Edge met his second wife, Laura Ann Owenby. John Edge's first wife had died, leaving him with seven small children. When he married Laura Ann, she assumed the care of her husband's older children, five boys and two girls. John and Laura Ann had six children, Herbert Monroe (1892), Belle, Ethel, Johnnie (a girl), Mae, and Homer.

When Herbert Monroe was 6, the family moved to Union County, Ga., and settled at the Owenby farm in Ivy Log. Herbert Edge's first education was in the country school near Ivy Log Creek where he finished the fifth grade and then dropped out to help on the farm.

At age 20, Herbert Monroe Edge had the strong impression that there was more he should do in life than walk behind a plow. He enrolled in Blairsville Academy where he was the oldest student. He was willing to take the jibes his fellow students gave him at being so old and back in school. He graduated from Young Harris College and entered Emory University to study medicine. On June 7, 1921, he received the degree of Doctor of Medicine. He was then 29 years of age, not so old considering how many years he had been out of school and how much he had gained, educationally, in the past nine years.

Dr. Edge did his internship at Knoxville General Hospital, Knoxville, Tenn. There he met registered nurse Chloe Philmon, but she went a different way, to Denver, Colo. She married John Arrowood, and their son, John Arrowood Jr. was born. Then John, Sr. died in 1927. Dr. Edge and Nurse Chloe Philmon Arrowood were reunited and married. Dr. Edge reared her young son as his own, but never changed his name or adopted him.

Dr. Edge's medical career spanned over 50 years. He was a compassionate doctor and held the care of his patients as a sacred trust. He attended the birth of babies and stood beside a bed when a patient was near death. From 1936 through his death in 1974, he was a loving doctor to Blairsville and Union County, going when he was called to the humblest homes.

When Dr. Edge died May 31, 1974, he was laid to rest at Antioch Cemetery in Union County, near the graves of his parents, John B. and Laura Ann Owenby Edge, and his sister Mae who had died of typhoid in 1905 at age 20.

Dr. Edge enjoyed collecting antique clocks and had them scattered throughout his house. I can remember admiring some of them as I stopped by his office to get help for my ailing sore throat when I was a teenager. Much time has passed since those days in the 1940s when he cared for my sick mother and when the clocks ticked and chimed from rooms near his office in his home on Pruitt Circle. Time has moved into another dimension since then, and the days of the doctor making house calls has passed.

c 2007 by Ethelene Dyer Jones; published Jan. 18, 2007 in The Union Sentinel, Blairsville, GA. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.