THE DOCTOR IS ------ OUT AND ABOUT
Dr, Welcome Pray
Most of us are aware that in earlier times, most people did not go to the doctor. Instead the doctor came to them. This was necessary in our pioneer days. We would not expect a person severely ill or a woman in labor to hitch the horse to carriage or sleigh and go bumping along the trail in perhaps inclement weather to town for a doctor visit. You sent for the doctor, usually by messenger, and the doctor would hitch his horse to carriage and come to your house.
This would be true for our hero of this sketch, one of the first doctors in Waterville, Welcome Pray. Welcome was the son of John Pray’s brother James, and was persuaded to come to Waterville soon after graduating from a New York medical school in Fairfield about 1830. His uncle, Dr. Paris Pray, was his preceptor in medical school and came to Waterville with him in 1833. Doctors were scarce on the frontier so his practice covered anywhere in the area he was needed. The pay was meager as cash money was scarce, and usually payment was made with eggs, hay, ham or bacon from the smokehouse or even firewood. Sometimes the patient was poor and no pay could be collected at all but the Dr. never refused his service. He was dedicated to his profession and not really a business man. Some of Dr. Pray’s correspondence, preserved at the Wakeman Archives, indicate that he also farmed to survive, as some letters mention the condition of his wheat or corn crop. They also mention travel to far places in the district up and down the Maumee Valley. Dr. Pray’s life became a little easier and income more certain as the area became more settled but travel to visit a patient remained the same. Welcome and Susan Pray lost two sons in the Civil War and a third son to a tragic accident. Their three daughters did well.
The doctors that followed Welcome Pray had the same type of practice. Dr. Samuel Downs took over for Welcome in 1873 and his ledgers are held in the Wakeman Archives. Even then he was often paid in barter and traveled into the countryside by horse and buggy. Dr. Downs died in 1900 and lived in the Morehouse-Downs residence on River Road. Only when automobiles came into common use did the travel become easier but doctors still visited the patient more often than seeing patients in the office. Even in the 1940s and 1950s doctors would drive to the patients home, especially to see sick kids that might be contagious. Imagine that happening in today’s medical environment where quantity beats quality of service. Sometimes the “good ol’ days” were better.