Forum Flashbacks: April 10-16

MARYVILLE DAILY FORUM, APRIL 16, 2000
25 YEARS AGO: Monkeying Around – Ciara White (top), Nick Weems and Taylor Deen, (inset) all third-grade students at Horace Mann Learning Center, enjoy warm weather recess fun.

50 years ago

Maryville Daily Forum, April 16, 1975

Doctor Situation ‘Desperate’, Harr Says

“The situation is desperate. We have a crisis here for medical health care,” Dr. Patrick Harr, Maryville family practice specialist, told a special Chamber of Commerce committee formed to recruit doctors for the area at its first formal meeting Tuesday night. Harr painted a generally pessimistic picture of recruiting doctors, but said the key is to “hit hard at the kids from the five-county area now in medical school to come here and practice.”

About 15 people attended Tuesday night’s meeting, held at St. Francis Hospital.

Harr said in the late 1940s there was about three doctors for every one now in this area. “But with Dr. (G.E.) Stamos leaving and Dr. (B.F.) Byland not working for a while we’re facing the very real possibility of going into the fall with only four full-time physicians. Hopefully, Dr. Byland will return by then and we’ll have five.

“We have a service area which includes 55,000 people,” he continued. “The national average is one physician for every 750 people. This ratio of one per 11,000 just can’t cut it.”

Everyone at the meeting recognized the need for physicians. The question was: how do we get them and keep them here once they’ve decided to set up practice?

According to Harr, it won’t be easy:

… “A typical ad in a medical journal might read, ‘Group of three doctors seeks one, two or three young, well trained doctors, guaranteed salary of $30,000 to $40,000 the first year, full partnership second year, six to eight weeks vacation.’”

“Will Maryville doctors make this kind of offer?” Harr was asked.

“I don’t think we have any choice,” he said.

100 years ago

Maryville Tribune April 11, 1925

MARY ANN BOVARD KNOWS WHERE TO FIND EASTER EGGS

Mary Ann Bovard, 6-year-old sister of Kurby Bovard, always finds more rabbit’s eggs on Easter Sunday than he does, even if he is “ten-’n-going-on-’leven.” She made arrangements today with her daddy, O. K. Bovard, to awaken her in the morning as soon as his eyes open, and it’s going to take a big drove, or herd, or flock, or whatever groups of rabbits are called, to leave eggs in all the nooks and crannies she will explore tomorrow.

Mary Ann has never seen a really, sure enough live rabbit except in a grocery store window, so she isn’t in on any of the Easter bunny’s secrets. But, if you can believe her, she knows where she would leave the eggs if she were a rabbit. So she goes there and finds them — and that’s why she always gets more than Kurby!

EDITOR’S NOTE: The 50- and 100-year flashbacks are courtesy of the Missouri Digital Newspaper Project from the State Historical Society of Missouri, accessible at shsmo.newspapers.com.