“My father delivered 100s of babies,” daughter Jane reminisces.
Remember when doctors made house calls? If you do, you know how blessed you were to have this experience. If you are too young for such a memory, you can now experience it first-hand by making house calls with Doc Farmer in a new book, “Doc” – Memories of Edward C. Farmer, written by Martena Gunnlaugsson Koken.
Doc Farmer dedicated 50 years to healing, from 1929 to 1979. His empathy, nurturing and intuitive doctoring made him a legend throughout Door County, Wisconsin. His Island patients remember him lovingly as they relate the varied stories of Doc’s unmitigated care. As a Doctor of Osteopathy, Doc believed in the ‘whole body’ approach to healing and concentrated his efforts on natural remedies. He was loyal to his calling, his patients, and the ‘guess-timated’ 15,000 babies he delivered. Notorious for his ‘unprintable’ jokes, he claimed, “If you can get a patient to smile, they don’t feel so depressed. You have to be able to laugh at yourself. So I always like to tell them a joke.”
Title: “Doc” – Memories of Edward C. Farmer
Author: Martena Gunnlaugsson Koken
Publisher: BookSurge Publishing (Nov. 11, 2008)
Paperback: 196 pages
Where to buy: Fair Isle Books & Gifts, Islandtime Books and More, Amazon.com
Read an excerpt from the book.
