Elementary, my dear: Life in the high-tech lane… or isn’t it supposed to be easier now?

Published 10:33 am Thursday, April 28, 2022

“If this is an emergency, hang up and dial 911.”

Even as the voice on the phone continued offering me choices, my thoughts flew back 140 years to when my great-grandmother was raising her family here in Oysterville. I’m pretty sure her efforts to reach the doctor did not involve a telephone, a recorded message, or a litany of choices that had naught to do with her quest. If, in fact, she could reach the doctor at all.

“If you are calling for a refill of a prescription medication, please call your pharmacy.”

In 1882, 30-year-old Julia Jefferson Espy was the wife of the town’s patriarch, Major Robert Hamilton Espy; she was the mother of four with the fifth due shortly; she had been a schoolteacher of some 50 students (including a number of rowdy young oyster workers); and, by the time she had married in 1872, as the eldest of eleven children, she had helped raise her ten younger siblings during her own mother’s periodic hospitalizations for melancholia in the 1850s and 1860s.

“If you know your party’s extension, you may enter it at any time.”

So… Julia knew a thing or two about childhood illnesses but, even so, she occasionally felt the need to consult with Doctor Balch. (And, I might add, occasionally Pacific County’s only doctor felt the need to consult with her, as well.) To get a message to him if he happened to be in his office in South Bend, would require the services of her husband, and perhaps some help from the local stagecoach driver, John Morehead, and some of the oystermen, as well.

“For appointment assistance, press one.”

Julia wrote her message hurriedly. “Our two boys came home from school yesterday sick. Teacher says a number out. I think it’s the scarleting. Come if you are able. Mrs. J. Espy.” Her husband strode over to the Pacific House a few minutes before the stage was scheduled to leave for Ilwaco. It was a Friday in January and it would be several hours until dawn, but John Morehead was already urging passengers aboard and preparing for the 20-mile journey down the tempestuous weatherbeach.

“For billing inquiries, press two.”

As Morehead would write many years later: “The beach driver was obliged to get out of bed at the unholy hour of two o’clock in the morning, go to the barn and feed, groom and harness his horses, eat his breakfast, hitch up and drive around the town and out on the oyster beds gathering up his load so as to leave the hotel door promptly at four o’clock a.m.”

“For referral inquiries, press three.”

Morehead did not mention that, in making his pre-dawn drive around the village, he gathered up more than mail and deliveries. The stage driver was privy to a passel of information about the goings-on in and beyond the bustling town of Oysterville. He’d have heard if someone was going over to “The Bend” and would also know if that person might be relied upon to get a note to Dr. Balch today. And that’s the information Major Espy was after. A few minutes later, the Major was at the town dock, handing Mrs. Espy’s note to neighbor Abe Wing. Wing had some banking business to do in South Bend and was just readying his boat for the windy voyage across Shoalwater Bay and up the Willapa River. If the doctor was in his office, the message would be given to him directly, before the morning tide had turned.

“For medical records, press four.”

Meanwhile, Julia checked and re-checked Ed and Harry’s symptoms and compared them with her own memory of her siblings who, years earlier had suffered from the disease we now call “scarlet fever.” The notes in the back of her little black book of “Home Remedies” said: “Give warm drinks of catnip, sage, saffron, or snakeroot tea. If throat is sore and swollen, bathe it with a liniment made of one part of spirits of turpentine and two parts of sweet oil applied while warm…”

“For clinic hours, address, or fax information, press five.”

Major Espy was home in plenty of time for breakfast. He and Mrs. Espy felt secure in the knowledge that, if Abe could deliver the message, the doctor would arrive in Oysterville on the next high tide in his little sailboat, the “Pill Box.” That would be in about twelve hours, giving Julia plenty of time to get the guest room ready for his stay in the village. Surely, he would visit all the families of the stricken youngsters. In the meantime, wives and mothers and grandmas would pool their knowledge and do what women had always done in time of sickness or trouble — they would do the best they could… and pray.

“For all other calls, please press nine.”