They Called Her Mrs. Doc.

by Janette Oke

  They had family prayer together as the Canadian Pacific Railroad car rambled its clanging way toward the East.

  Later in life, Cassandra was often to recall that trip, counting it as one of her most treasured family memories.

  Joseph was the next to marry. He picked a local girl, one whom Cassandra and Samuel were happy to welcome to the family. It was a community wedding in their own little church with so many in attendance that they couldn’t all fit, and the pastor opened the windows so his voice would carry to those who clustered chairs closely around the outside.

  After the ceremony the many well-wishers gathered together for a huge community pot-luck feast. Cassandra looked around the gathering of town and country folks and could tie many memories to faces before her.

  They really are my people, she thought in a burst of nostalgia. I belong here—so totally.

  At that moment Mrs. Clement moved toward her, stooped and aging but with sharp eyes glinting, teeth softly clicking.

  “Mis’ Doc,” she said with her usual candor, “ya raised yerself one fine family. Ever’one of ’em. Done yerself proud.” Then before Cassandra could even respond she went on.

  “ ’Course, they had ’em an advantage. Yer eastern manners with their pa’s common sense.”

  Cassandra smiled. She felt that she had just been paid a wonderful and sincere compliment.

  Joseph and his Annie took a brief honeymoon at Waterton Lake and settled in the community where Joseph continued to build—but now on his own. He seemed to have made some good choices—and Cassandra and Samuel were pleased.

  Frequent letters from Vivian indicated that she was happy with her husband and home. Cassandra always laid the letters aside with grateful feelings washing through her. It was hard for her to wait to share the letters with Samuel. They always discussed the “happenings” after he’d had his chance to read.

  As the months passed, Cassandra realized that the letters had taken a new turn. Vivian had learned to love her Grandmother Winston dearly, but she was now expressing increasing concern for the elderly woman’s spiritual condition.

  “I’m not sure that Grandmother really knows she has eternal life,” she wrote in one such letter. “It worries me. She talks of church and good deeds as though that is what will gain her entrance to heaven. I have tried to explain, but so far she doesn’t seem to understand. Please pray for me.”

  Cassandra’s eyes filled with tears as she remembered the times she had tried in her own letters to explain the difference to her mother and father. Her attempts had fallen on deaf ears as well.

  “Perhaps Vivian will have more success,” she said to Samuel after he had read the letter. He nodded. They joined hands and prayed together.

  Christina went off to the city. She didn’t wish to continue her education immediately, she said. She didn’t know if she wished to go on to school at all. What she did want to do was to become a telephone operator—so that is exactly what she did, and loved it.

  “At least there is one advantage,” said Samuel. “She can call as often and for as long as she likes, and it won’t cost us anything.”

  But the telephone company didn’t see it quite that way, so Christina told them to call her because she “was saving money.” Their telephone bills reflected the fact that they had a daughter in Lethbridge.

  Thomas was the next to marry. He seemed so young to Cassandra. Only twenty. But he had completely made up his mind and there seemed to be no dissuading him.

  He had chosen a lovely young girl who worked at a Calgary law office while Thomas was finishing his classes to be a pharmacist. They settled in Calgary and Beth quit her job and cheerfully went home to be a housekeeper, wife, and, she added with a twinkle in her eyes, prospective mother.

  Christina met her chosen at a church in Lethbridge. He was a young pastor on his first assignment. It didn’t take the young people long to decide that their lives should be joined together. Samuel and Cassandra, along with Joseph, Annie and Peter, made the trip to Lethbridge for the wedding. Thomas and Beth came from Calgary. Vivian sent her regrets. She was expecting their first child in a month’s time and didn’t dare risk the trip. “Just in case,” she explained.

  “What’s the matter?” teased Samuel in a telephone conversation. “Don’t you trust your father? I have delivered half of the population here at Jaret—including you.”

  But in serious moments, even Samuel agreed that it would not be wise for Vivian to make the long, tiring trip.

  The wedding was lovely and Samuel and Cassandra took to their new son instantly.

  “Rev. and Mrs. George Dawson,” announced the officiating pastor, and Christina and George turned to the audience with matching smiles. As they walked the aisle together as husband and wife, Christina threw kisses to Cassandra and Samuel.

  Vivian gave birth to a baby boy. It was all Cassandra could do to keep from boarding the first train back to Montreal. Samuel had promised her that they would make the trip together in June. That was months away. The baby would be four months old before she even got to hold him.

  But Cassandra held herself in check. If she went immediately, there was the chance that Samuel would cancel his plans to make the trip. She knew Vivian was just as anxious to show off her new son to her father as she was to her mother. Cassandra decided she would make herself wait until June.

  They named the baby Samuel Henry, and Cassandra couldn’t hold back the tears that slipped out from under her lashes.

  Peter seemed reluctant to leave home. When asked his plans for the future, he replied with a shrug, “I dunno yet. I’m still thinking about it—and praying too.”

  “I hope you are prepared to have that boy underfoot when he’s fifty,” Samuel smiled one day as he and Cassandra breakfasted together.

  Cassandra sipped slowly from her steaming cup of coffee.

  “He doesn’t seem in a hurry, does he?” she responded.

  “I’m glad he at least has work,” Samuel commented.

  Peter was working with Joseph, building a new business block in downtown Jaret.

  But when Peter did finally make up his mind, he surprised them both.

  “I want to be a doctor,” he informed them one night. “I have prayed about it for a long time and I feel sure that God is urging me in that direction.”

  Samuel and Cassandra exchanged smiles.

  “And then I am applying to the mission board,” went on Peter. “I feel God is calling me to medical work in Africa, possibly Nigeria.”

  The smiles disappeared. Concern first flashed across two faces, and then pride and joy brought tears to their eyes. Samuel reached out his hand and took the strong, already calloused hand of his son, while Cassandra fought to keep the tears from falling.

  “We’ll do all we can to support you,” said Samuel, his voice a bit husky.

  “I know you will, Pa,” replied the young man. “You always have.”

  Cassandra felt that she had prepared herself for the leaving of her youngest. After all, he was no longer a child. He was a man. But deep down in her heart she knew he would always be her little boy—her baby. She choked back sobs and held him for a long time. She didn’t say, “I’ll miss you,” but she knew he got her message. Besides, she couldn’t get the words past the lump in her throat.

  They were proud of him as they watched him climb aboard the outgoing train. But he would be such a long, long way from them. And she was going to feel so alone with the last one gone from home.

  She and Samuel drove the many miles home from Calgary alone. The trip went faster now. The Model T shortened the hours on the roads. Cassandra still watched the skies for thunderstorms. She knew what could happen to the roads if the rain fell too heavily.

  “It’s going to seem different,” she mused to Samuel.

  He kept his eyes on the road. Cassandra guessed that he was fighting his emotions just as much as she.

  He nodded his head, his jaw set.

  When he did finally speak, h
is words surprised her—though they shouldn’t have. “They’re all good kids,” he said with deep feeling. “Every one of them.”

  Chapter Twenty-two

  The March of Time

  The house seemed too big. Cassandra didn’t know what to do with all the spare room—or the spare time. Neighborhood children helped fill in the time factor to some degree. They still came with their skinned knees, their slivers, and their small cuts and asked her to care for them.

  They also brought their little animals. Cats with torn ears, dogs with porcupine quills, rabbits with scratched noses. Cassandra doctored them all as best she could. She made sure she had simple medicines and plenty of bandages on hand and even took to discussing her animal cases with Samuel to ensure she wasn’t doing something wrong or missing something.

  “I’m not a veterinarian,” he would tell her, “but it sounds about right. Don’t know of anyone around who could do any more.”

  Word traveled. Eventually local farmers stopped her on the street to ask about a horse with a lame leg or a cow with a split udder. Cassandra felt uncomfortable at times, but she advised as best she could.

  But even with her “doctoring,” her days seemed to hang heavily on her hands. One day as she sat on the back porch shelling fresh peas from her garden, Samuel came up the walk. He had just returned from a house call in the country and knew that his office would be full of patients waiting for his attention. Already he looks tired, thought Cassandra, and she hurried to fix him a cup of tea.

  As he sipped it slowly, he seemed to be in deep thought.

  “What would you think of helping out in the office again?” he asked her at last.

  Her head came up quickly. Had she been missing something?

  “Aren’t you feeling well?” she asked.

  “Oh, I’m fine. Fine. But I don’t have the drive I used to. Thought that with the two of us working together, I might not have to put in such long days.”

  Cassandra popped another peapod, her eyes on the bowl in her lap. Relieved that Samuel was all right, she nodded slowly.

  “Don’t see why not,” she answered Samuel. “My household chores sure don’t take all my time anymore.”

  Samuel grinned. He knew it was hard for her to be without children in the house and that time hung heavy for her.

  The arrangement was made. She went to the office for two hours each morning and again in the afternoon for as long as Samuel needed her. It seemed to work out just fine.

  Cassandra decided that the grandchildren came in bunches. Vivian added a girl at about the same time that Joseph and Ann had their first, also a girl. Then in another two years, Christina and George had a boy and Thomas and Beth had a girl. Two years following, Vivian gave birth to another girl, Christina and Joseph both had boys. And in another three years it was a boy for Joseph, and a girl for Christina and for Thomas. In a matter of a dozen years, they were grandparents to ten grandchildren. And yet, except for Joseph’s three, all of them were many miles away. Cassandra wished they all could be near.

  But Joseph’s Sallie Jo and Adam were a great joy to their grandparents and spent as much time as possible at the house. The old swing in the yard had to be repaired, and the sandbox was filled with fresh sand.

  Samuel even bought some new toys, since trucks and cars were now all the rage rather than the wagons their own children had played with.

  Sallie Jo was a dainty little girl, full of energy and intriguing questions.

  “Why do geese fly like that?”

  Her grandfather studied the vee in the sky and tried to explain simply.

  “If it works like that, why didn’t God tell the other birds?” she wanted to know.

  Grandfather had no answer to that question.

  Sallie Jo studied the geese for a moment longer and then asked again, “Who chooses the leader? Do they have a ’lection?”

  Cassandra smiled, wondering how Samuel was going to answer that one.

  “You know,” he said. “I’ve heard that they don’t have just one leader. They work well together. One takes the lead—we’ll say it’s a big gander—though it might not be, but it has to be a big strong bird to lead the way through the sky. Then when his wings begin to tire, another goose moves in and takes his place and he drops back into the vee where it isn’t quite as hard bucking the air current and rests a bit as he flies. Then another might take the lead for a while—and another.”

  Sallie Jo gazed upward at the geese. They were disappearing in the afternoon haze.

  “Sort of like in church, huh?” she commented and her grandfather frowned slightly.

  “We change leaders too. You told us about Pastor Ray getting old and tired so now Pastor Shriver is here. When he gets tired, someone else will come. And in Sunday school, Mrs. Peters isn’t gonna teach anymore. I heard her say to Mrs. Walters, ‘Let the younger set take over. I’ve had my turn.’ ”

  Samuel smiled at the granddaughter he called Pixie and ran his hand over her head of brown curly hair.

  Sallie Jo looked steadfastly at her grandfather, hazel eyes so much like Samuel’s.

  “But one shouldn’t fall back into the vee until you really need a rest, should you?” she added solemnly. “That would be quitting too soon.”

  “Right,” he said, nodding vigorously. “Right. One shouldn’t quit too soon. Just like the geese.”

  Cassandra wondered if the small girl didn’t have more sense than many adults.

  Every letter from Peter in faraway Africa brought them information on the needs of the people. Cassandra knew that Joseph and Ann gave as generously to the support of the mission’s medical work as she and Samuel did.

  But the letter she was holding in her hand held more than just a report on needs of the small clinic. Cassandra’s eyes opened wide and her heart began to beat foolishly as she read his words.

  “I have met a nurse,” he began. “She works with the same mission right here in our little hospital. She is from the U.S., Michigan, in fact, and, Mama, you would approve of her. She’s wonderfully sensitive and caring. She loves the Lord and is careful to ask for His guidance before she leaps in and makes decisions—and besides all that—she has lovely blue eyes and a wonderful smile.”

  “Oh, God,” breathed Cassandra, hugging the letter to her heart. “You know how I have prayed for a good companion for Peter. Perhaps this is your answer to my prayers.”

  She turned her attention back to the letter.

  “We have been seeing a good deal of each other. Our work really doesn’t leave us much time for socializing; but when we do have some free time, we go for walks or just sit in the cool of the hospital veranda and chat. This usually doesn’t happen until after the sun goes down because of our long days, so it can actually be cool at times.

  “We haven’t made any definite plans as yet, but I am seriously considering making some. It would be so wonderful to have a dedicated mate—both a work-mate and a soul-mate. She is really very special.”

  Cassandra could not wait for Samuel to come home. She removed her apron, tucked the letter into her dress pocket, hurriedly pinned on her bonnet and rushed off down the board sidewalk to his office. She knew he would be as excited as she was.

  Samuel and Cassandra continued working side by side in the little office and came home at night to the serenity of their small home. As the years passed, they were no longer on the edge of the town. It had grown up all around them until they were in the middle of any hustle and bustle the small town could boast.

  With greater frequency, Samuel brought in a young doctor to care for the practice while the Smiths took two or three weeks to go visit with their grandchildren. That way they were able to more or less keep up with the happenings in the lives of their offspring.

  Peter did marry his Rachel. Cassandra was so thankful that Peter was no longer without human companionship. “I know that God was present with you,” she wrote, “but it is so nice to know that you have Rachel’s presence as well.”


  Cassandra and Samuel did not get to meet her until the couple came home on furlough. They heartily agreed with his assessment of his helpmate and were open in telling him so.

  Peter smiled and put his arm around Rachel’s waist, drawing her close.

  “And we are to have our first child,” he informed them, “next June.”

  Cassandra Elaine was born on June 26. Wonderfully hale and hearty—and many, many miles away from her grandparents on the other side of the world.

  Peter and Rachel added two boys to their family, and Vivian, after thinking for ten years that their family was complete, had another boy as well. That gave Cassandra and Samuel a total of fourteen grandchildren.

  “That is enough!” said Samuel in mock consternation, and Cassandra smiled. None of their children had reached the number of five—as she and Samuel had.

  Even so, Cassandra was willing to agree with Samuel. Fourteen was enough. The older ones were all set to graduate from high school and were already making plans as to what they wished to do in life. Daily Cassandra and Samuel prayed that God would be allowed to give them His guidance.

  Cassandra didn’t feel comfortable driving the car, so Samuel had hitched the horse to the buggy. He still kept horses. There were many times when a car would not have gotten him to the farmhouse where he was needed.

  He preferred the car, but when the weather was uncooperative and the mud or snowdrifts deep on the prairie roads, he knew he could still count on his horses to get him through.

  But Cassandra drove the buggy as much for enjoyment as for necessity. She loved the feel. Loved the air. Loved the quiet. Loved the solitude. So when arrangements were made for her to travel out to see Mrs. Fleming to change the dressing on her leg, Samuel did not even need to ask if she preferred taking the buggy. He hitched the trustworthy bay rather than the spirited black and brought the buggy to their hitching rail.