A collection of stories about growing up in Red River County, Texas in the 1940s and 1950s.

Thursday, April 27, 2006

Dr. Mullins from 1960

Below are some cut-outs from a Texas newspaper of Dr. Mullins, the frontier doctor that sold my grandad false teeth for $10 in the 1950s in the previous story.


(Above) Caption reads: At this work table Dr. Mullins makes false teeth, does other dental repairs for his patients.


(Above) Caption reads: Dr. Mullins relaxes on couch bought in 19(unreadable). Certificate (on the wall) is dated 1897.


(Above)Caption reads: Dr. Mullins pauses for pictures but he thinks he'll wait 'til he's 100 before he quits his practice. Dallas Morning News Parade Magazine, October 30, 1960.


(Above) Headline reads: 91-Year Old Dentist.

Below is the transcript of the above article. Note from Moonyene (his granddaughter) to Robert Fodge concerning the above article: "This article came out in the Dallas Morning News Parade Magazine on October 30, 1960. I thought it was a good summary for you. A few briefs: 1. He never ate second helpings at a meal. 2. He always took a 15-minute nap every day after lunch."

91-Year Old Dentist
by Paul Rosenfield

Tree salesman, sharecropper and buggy-riding tooth puller—that’s part of the amazing history of Dr. W. N. Mullins, of Clarksville, one of the oldest practicing dentists in the United States.

His hands are steady. His eyes are clear. He walks erect, works six days a week, eats whatever he wants, and has most of his own teeth.

Pretty good for a man past 70? Yes, and incredible for any man of 91. And just how old is a 91-year-old dentist?

Well, he’s old enough to keep as part of his office furniture an overstuffed couch he bought in 1908 from Sears, Roebuck & Co. for $11 and an old-fashioned foot motor that powered early-day drills.

Dr. Mullins bought that museum piece in 1897, and it was second hand then. (He doesn’t use it in his work, but it provokes plenty of conversation.)

And he’s young enough to think about the possibility of retiring in nine more years. Dr Mullins will be 100 then.

"I’m in good health. I don’t wear glasses except to read and to drive my car, and there’s no reason for me to think I won’t be here nine years from now," he said. "Then, I’ll retire and spend my time hunting and fishing."

Dr. Mullins can laugh now about the early days.

"In 1897 you didn’t need a diploma to get a certificate to practice dentistry. All you had to do was go before the board and pass an examination," he said. "I didn’t know much, but neither did the board, and I passed."

He came to Texas in 1889 from Humboldt, Tenn., and first sold trees in Red River County. In 1894 he and his brother, Tom, worked land in Delta County as sharecroppers.

"We worked a widow’s land that fall," he recalled. "And when the crop was in I got half of what we made and half of the widow’s daughters. I married one of them."

After working two years at Enloe, Texas, he went to Louisville, KY in 1897 to study dentistry. Later that same year, he was driving over the muddy, rural roads of North Texas in a buggy, hunting for prospective patients.

In 1899, Dr Mullins moved to Detroit, Texas, when a cousin notified him that the small town’s only dentist had died.

"I found that I could rent a house for $10 a month and office space for $3 a month. We decided it was a good move," he said.

Thirteen years ago, when he was 78, he moved to Clarksville so he could have some conveniences in his office—things like running water.

In his small office on E. Broadway in Clarksville, Dr. Mullins combines new dental techniques with the old.

"I still make a plaster impression like I used to 60 years ago," he said. "Dental progress has been wonderful, but I think some dentists rely on it too much. Some of these high-powered motors may be too strong."

When Dr. Mullins came out of dental school, a gold inlay had never been heard of. Neither had blocking a nerve.

"I had to learn that by just reading, or maybe practicing a little," he said.

Dr. Mullins was curious about the publication date of this very story.

"I may not be here if it’s too long away," he said.

And, considering his age, the reporter thought it was odd that he smiled.

But Dr. Mullins wasn’t talking about anything morbid. He was planning a trip in his car back to see his relatives in Tennessee. He and Mrs. Mullins—the second Mrs. Mullins—drive it almost every year.

Sunday, April 16, 2006

False Teeth

by Douglas Fodge



Some things that happened during my childhood were so dumbfounding and unbelievable that no one knew whether or not to believe them, then or even now. By the early ‘50s, Daddy’s teeth had rotted down to nubs, and this forced him to do something about the situation. An obvious remedy was to go to a dentist. In modern times, at least in most of the USA, going to a dentist would be akin to going to a shoe store – something you did a couple of times each year. Not at our household, especially in those days.

The only times we sought the help of a medically trained person of any kind was when something was really bad. In an earlier story, I told about the time Daddy chopped a 2-3” gash in the side of his head with an accidental blow from an ax while attempting to catch a rabbit that had escaped into a hollow tree. That little gash wasn’t serious enough to warrant medical attention, but when you could no longer eat corn-on-the-cob, fried rabbit etc. then matters were getting pretty darn serious. However, getting medical attention of any kind was no simple chore for us. We didn’t have an automobile, and all the medical and dental professionals were in neighboring towns of Clarksville or Paris, Texas, each about 15-20 miles distant.

Going to either of these small cities meant riding a bus or hitching a ride with someone, so Daddy hiked off to Mr. Van’s combination drugstore, bus station, reading room and soda fountain in Detroit (Texas, that is) to purchase a bus ticket to Clarksville, presumably to see Dr. W.M. Mullins, D.D.S. Dr. Mullins would be known today as a frontier dentist, lawyer, preacher, physician, and veterinarian. By the early 1950s, Dr. Mullins was nearing 90, but he still attended patients for whatever ailments they had. Daddy had known Dr. Mullins most of his life since Dr. Mullins had practiced in our community for several decades before moving his office to the larger city, Clarksville. Dr. Mullins was the Sunday School Superintendent at the First Methodist Church in Detroit for about 30 years. As for me, I don’t recall ever meeting Dr. Mullins, although others of my family can spin tales about different procedures he performed on them, including some about dentistry. Even today my brother Robert tells about one predicament Dr. Mullins encountered and how he solved the problem. It seems in his later years Dr. Mullins was about midway through a tooth extraction, and he concluded that he was too weak to finish extracting the patient’s tooth. Not the least bit flustered by this problem, Dr. Mullins went outside and enlisted the aid of a complete stranger in the hallway to help pull the recalcitrant tooth out of the poor fellow's mouth. There’s no doubt that the patient was grateful.

Daddy rode the bus to Clarksville on a Saturday morning and walked from the bus station to Dr. Mullins’ office. He asked to have his teeth extracted and replaced with a set of false teeth that morning without benefit of having made an appointment in advance. I’m certain Dr. Mullins understood the situation so he complied. As far as I know this was the only time in his life that Daddy visited a dentist, but that was fairly common practice among farmers in our area. People never brushed their teeth, and when a tooth “went bad” they pulled it out, often as not, they did it at home. There’s a bit of truth in the cartoon about boys pulling each others teeth by tying a piece of string around the base of a dying tooth and yanking it out.

I never heard that impressions of Daddy’s rotten teeth or mouth were made, and after his teeth were extracted, it was time to be fitted with a set of false teeth. I was told that Dr. Mullins excused himself, went into a back room, and returned with various sets of false teeth that he had in stock. He presented this collection of false teeth with the intent of picking a set that fulfilled Daddy’s requirements. The fitting process took about thirty minutes, and finally Dr. Mullins and Daddy were satisfied with a set of teeth. Daddy asked how much the set cost, and he was told that they would cost more than $100, plus the dental work. Now mind you, Daddy might have paid $200 for a good Coon or Fox Hound without even the slightest blink of an eye, but $100 for a set of false teeth? No way, Jose! According to Daddy he asked Dr. Mullins to bring out some less expensive sets of teeth, but Dr. Mullins informed him that less expensive sets of false teeth weren’t very good quality, and it would be hard to find a fit, especially any that looked somewhat natural in his mouth. "Let’s try some out anyway", was the reply, "I can’t afford all the expensive sets."

After another lengthy round of teeth fitting---can you imagine what this ordeal must have been like?---Daddy and Dr. Mullins were finally satisfied that a set of false teeth that would suffice had been identified, and Daddy asked Dr. Mullins how much they cost? "$10!" "How in God’s name could these false teeth be so much cheaper than all those others?", a jubilant and satisfied patient asked. "Because they’re second-hand teeth!"

So help me, we heard this story so often over the years without ever the slightest change in the way it was presented that Mama and I concluded that it had to be true. Moreover, Daddy was a firm believer that one would go to hell for lying just as fast as for stealing something, so I think it was true to the last detail. Nonetheless, in spite of satisfaction noted at the time of purchase, Daddy complained about how his false teeth fit and looked for the next 30 years, but he never went back to get replacements.