My mother had migraine headaches for more than thirty years and in some way we heard that Dr. R. S. Marlow, a chiropractor, could cure headaches. We called on Dr. Marlow and he seemed to be confident that he could relieve her of her trouble. I do not remember now how long she was under Dr. Marlow’s care but I do know that she never had another sick headache as we called them at that time.
In February 1917, I was struck with severe soreness in my low back, right knee and heel. I was up and down with what the M.D.s called rheumatism. The entire month of June I was confined to my bed. I finally decided to give Dr. Marlow a try, so on July 1st, Mrs. Charton phoned him and he came to see me. It took all three of us to get me turned over on my stomach. Dr. Marlow ran his fingers down my back and stopped on the old sore place I had guarded since a horse fell on me years before. He said, “this is what is causing your trouble and if I can get that sore place out of your back, you will get well.” I asked him if that was all it would take and he said, “yes.” I told him to go after it and I am telling you he let me have it.
That was the morning of July 1st and the morning of July 4th, I got on a street car and went to Dr. Marlow’s office. About a week later, I think it was July 10th, I went to the bank to work. Sixty days later, I had gained twenty-two pounds and was talking chiropractic to any and all who would listen.
You will remember that was during World War I and the great flu epidemic was raging in 1918. People were dying on all sides of us but Dr. Marlow and Dr. Herrington had ads in the paper, stating they had not lost a patient. All this time Dr. Marlow was encouraging me to study chiropractic and he kept me posted on many of his spectacular recoveries. Mrs. Charlton and I were thoroughly sold to finance it. When the Armistice was signed and the war was ended, we had great hopes of going to Davenport.
About this time we found our friend and fellow church member, Mr. H. C. Sloop, was planning to do the same thing. His plans were more mature than ours and he entered Palmer School September 1, 1919. Dr. Sloop’s encouraging letters of what he found in Davenport and the Palmer School proved to be all we needed so four months later, January 1, 1920, I was enrolled in Palmer School.
I found we had about twenty Texans in the Palmer School at that time. One of them was Dr. J. H. Gouldy of San Antonio. He had an account at the Frost National Bank where I worked and I had persuaded him to study chiropractic. Mr. Gouldy was a live wire and a good organizer so we organized a Texas Association in the School. This Texas bunch got me elected President of the freshman class. I must have performed fairly well for I was elected president of our graduating class also.
I was fortunate in getting some good patients in the school clinic. To my surprise most of them got better.
I was anxious to know what I could do on my own, so I went up to Buffalo, Iowa, a little town ten miles from Davenport. I opened an office after getting permission of the school clinical director on September 9, 1920. I shall never forget the agony I went through when I saw a man trying to get a crippled woman out of a buggy which I was sure was to be my first patient. She was almost bent double and walked with her left hand on her left knee and her right hand on her right hip. To me at that time she appeared to be a hopeless cripple. When I got to her case history, she said she had been crippled only three months and had hurt her back lifting. When I got to palpating her spine, I found so much space between the 5th lumbar spines process and the sacrum, I was sure she had a broken back. I was afraid to touch her spine and told them to meet me at the Palmer Schoo the next day for an x-ray. The x-ray showed a severe rotation of the entire lumbars. The clinical director assured me that with proper adjustments the patient should get well. The patient could not lie on her stomach so the problem was to get her in a position for an adjustment, so I went to the home and had the patient get on her knees with the upper part of her body on the bed, near the foot of the bed. Her husband braced her by putting both of his hands on her buttocks and I got on the first round of the foot board of an old iron bed frame and I put all that I had into that adjustment. She screamed and moaned and the first word she spoke was to cry out that her leg and foot were burning and tingling. Two days later she came to my office. This lady operated a small dairy in the little town and every one knew of her crippled condition. Within a few days she was delivering milk again and my office was full of patients.
Those were prohibition days and I had rented a small space in an old saloon, the only place I could find that had a stove in it. Hay wire and burlap were the partitions for my adjusting room and dressing rooms. My furniture was a $10.00 table, an old school palpation stool and two straight, used chairs. My office hours depended on the train schedule – Tuesdays and Thursdays, 2:00 to 6:00 p.m., Saturday 10:00 am to 6:00 p.m. My largest number of patients for any one day was twenty nine. I did not miss a day of school that year so I could get my diploma for the two year course, on December 24, 1920.
I had my office, advertised for sale on the bulletin board of the school. I had a good prospect that was to go up and look it over so I told all my patients that might be my last day; also that I wanted to see them all and that was the day I had twenty nine. I sold all of my office equipment and practice for $30.00. Those three months convinced me that I could cure anything and I left Davenport feeling that I was “some chiropractor."
I had a Methodist Preacher friend who was in McAllen, Texas, and he insisted that I open my office there and he would help me all he could. I left Davenport the night of December 24, 1920 – the Mississippi River was frozen and I landed in McAllen and picked oranges off the trees three days later. In mCallen my first undertaking was to find a house I could use as a home and an office. The best one I found belonged to an M.D. I called on him and told him I wanted the place for a home and an office. He assured me it was okay with him, just so I paid the rent. I found he was wearing the same kind of button on the lapel of his coat that I was wearing. He told me there was an osteopath there that claimed to have run several chiropractors out of town and he thought he would call on me as well. He told me that before he accepted the rent. I assured him that I wanted the house. He shook hands with me and wished me luck.
Two days later while I was working, putting partitions in the house, the osteopath knocked on the door and greeted me very cordially but informed me in no uncertain terms that I could not practice chiropractic in McAllen – that he and other doctors would not permit it. He was a man of rather small stature and I was expecting his visit so I happened to have a hammer in my hand and a pistol in my pants pocket. When he finished his speech I took over. I informed the gentleman that I was going to practice in McAllen, if he thought he was going to stop me now would be a good time to start doing something about it. By that time we were on the porch and he seemed to get in a hurry but told me he would see me later and departed.
My preacher friend lived next door so I went over to let him know that I had been threatened. The next morning the preacher took me to every business house and office in McAllen to introduce me and to tell them of the threat against me. It turned out the osteopath had earned a reputation as an abortionist and shortly thereafter he left McAllen.
My family and I soon found we did not care for the climate nor the location of the valley and we moved up to San Marcos in May, 1921 to take care of Dr. Frances Roberts’ office while she took a six months sick leave.
In January, 1922, I moved to Coolidge, Limestone County, twelve miles from Mexia, which had a big oil boom on. I was getting off to a good start in Coolidge when I was arrested for practicing medicine without a license. The M.D. who had an office next door to mine, had his constable father-in-law file the charge. That knocked the props out from under me for I had never been arrested before. The first patient that came into my office I showed the notice of arrest and asked him if he could sign the $300.00 bond for me. He said, “let me have it,” and he put his coat back on and left. Some three hours later, he came back and he had thirty one names written all over that bond.
The telephone office was near my office and the operator called me in to tell me that I had nothing to fear for all the lines were busy discussing the outrage of the M.D. having me arrested. In less than three weeks I was adjusting thirty patients per day. An attorney who was the brother of my first patient took over my case and it was soon dismissed. I collected $5000.00 in the next eleven months, never worked so hard and never had so much fun with the finest people on the top side of the world.
In January, 1926, I moved to Austin and believe it or not, I found the same kind of fine people in Austin, but I have never been arrested here to test their loyalty.
I joined the first Texas Chiropractic organization I found and that was in Forth Worth in 1922 – I happened to be elected a director at that meeting. Dan Moody was a fiery fighting candidate for Attorney General that year and said over the radio if the good people would elect him he would run all the chiropractors out of Texas. I guess the old boy didn’t realize what a hard job he was undertaking for he was elected Attorney General and Governor later. Now he is an old, sick, decrepit man and the chiropractors are going fine in Texas.
In Austin I found the late Dr. O. H. Richardson, whose health was not very good, and Dr. Stanley Wright. Dr. Wright turned out to be a good politician in that he would tell me to take one man for the office and he would take the opposing one – if his man won, he could deal with his and if my man won, I could deal with him and you know that worked fine for me.
Then the old Sanitary Code Bill came into the picture every session of the Legislature and we all dreaded it. An old time country lawyer and Senator became a chiropractic patient about this time. Senator Archie Pharr of the Free State of Duval County The Senator had a bad back and his Secretary would bring him to my office three times a week and when I could get his back easy, I would remind him about the Old Sanitary Code Bill and his one answer was “you take care of my back and I will not let the bill pass in the Senate,” and it never did.
In 1934 I was elected President of the Board of Stewards at the University Methodist Church, and in 1935, President of the Kiwanis Club. in 1957 I took training in Dr. Logan’s Basic Technique and in 1940 I took Reflexology from the Texas College. Then in 1936, I was elected President of the Chiropractic State Association. We had a fine set of Directors and Dr. H. W. Watkins had a young law and business graduate friend, E. L. Bauknight, whom he interested in writing a new set of by-laws for our Association, providing for an Executive Secretary and a Defense Department. You must remember chiropractors were being arrested in those days and when a person came into your office you weren’t sure whether they were a new patient or an enemy. At the State Convention in Galveston in 1937, the Board of Directors really started the ball of success rolling for chiropractic by employing E. L. Bauknight as Executive Secretary. Mr. Bauknight has been a Godsend to chiropractic. His wise and faithful leadership has been an inspiration to us all.
Our beloved late Dr. R. S. Marlow found our loved and honored friend, the late Judge E. B. Simmons, to head our Defense Department, April 1, 1938. Your Directors, in their far-sighted plan, employed Judge Simmons. The employment of Mr. Bauknight and Judge Simmons revolutionized chiropractic in Texas. There were no more arrests. Mr. Bauknight’s Public Relations work began to show in the Legislative halls immediately, and in 1949 we got a good chiropractic Bill passed.
It has been a privilege and a pleasure to work these 42 years with lovely people. We have much yet to be done but with the help of God, and fine, dedicated doctors of Texas, we will succeed.
In 1937 I was awarded the Keeler Plaque for outstanding service to chiropractic.
