CARLSON, Col. Walter A.

CARLSON, BRADLEY

Posted By: Sharon R Becker (email)
Date: 11/11/2014 at 15:19:37

The Globe Gazette
Mason City, Cerro Gordo County, Iowa
Saturday, January 11, 1941, Page 16

THEY STARTED HERE
No. 42 in a Mason City Series of Success Stories

Captain Carlson, in Medical Research

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This is the story of a young man who knew what he wanted, a youth who put his eye on a goal and proved he was right in aiming at it.

It is the story of Walter A. Carlson, who as a Mason city high school youth set his heart on becoming a doctor and kept afer that ideal until he won his M. D. and rose to gain outstanding recognition in the ranks of U. S. army physicians and from civilian doctors as well.

For the former Mason Cityan, the son of Dr. and Mrs. F. G. Carlson of 511 East State street, is now director of the department of psychology in the school of aviation medicine at Randolph Field, Tex. And his experiments in the advanced field of brain waves are beginning to attract much attention.

Walter Carlson was born in Cerro Gordo county, at Thornton on March 8, 1906. He lived there as a small boy and attended school there for a short time until his father went abroad for a year's specialized study. Then young Walter had the unique experience of attending six schools in a year's time; for his mother and he visited at various points during the periods Dr. Carlson was away.

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Coming to Mason City, Walter found himself enrolled in the second grade at Washington school. In those years that folowed he progressed through grade school and into high school, showing a keen mind for both science and his other studies.

It was while he was in high school that he definitely decided to be a doctor. His father, knowing the hard work and protential heartaches that come to a medical student, tried to dissuade him. But Walter Carlson was sure that his life work lay in the field of medicine.

In high school the youth showed an interest in Hi-Y work and was a member of the Gospel team of that organization. He also worked with the Wig and Masque club, although not in an acting capacity.

Walter Carlson was a good student and when the class of 1923 was graduated he stood second in scholarship. For a year he attended junior college here and then he went to Iowa City to continue his pre-medical studies at the state university.

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At Iowa he found a second activity that interested him greatly, the army. He took R. O. T. C. work there and his contacts with army ways at the university led him to decide to combine the two careers.

Walter joined Kappa Sigma, a social fraternity, and Phil Beta Phi, a medical fraternity during the five years he studied at Iowa. After his first year, in the liberal art school, he had little time for other campus activities, for the college of medicine is an exacting mistress and he had to devote his full time and efforts to his studies.

Summers the young man worked for a Mason City oil company to help pay his way through school.

Completing his four years in the college of medicine, the Mason Cityan was awarded his bachelor of science and doctor of medicine degrees.

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Then he turned to the task of combining the two careers he had chosen and began his internship at the Fitzsimmons general hospital - an army institution - at Denver, Colo. It was the last year that the army gave internships at its hospitals.

When his internship was completed and he was a full fledged doctor at last, Walter Carlson was awarded a place on the staff of the Fitzsimmons hospital.He specialized in eye, ear, nose and throat cases and also did considerable lung work.

At the end of his first year at Fitzsimmons, Dr. Carlson was commissioned a first lieutenant in the army medical corps.

But the biggest thing that happened at the Denver hospital was his marriage to a girl he had had met there, Miss Lurettta Bradley of Cedar Springs, Mich. Mrs. Carlson was a graduate nurse working at Fitzsimmons at the time, and had been in the service a year longer than had Dr. Carlson. They are the parents of one son, Peter, born in the Philippine Islands.

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After an additional year at Fitzsimmons, Dr. Carlson attended the Army Medical school at Washington, D. C., where he worked in the Walter Reed hospital. Then he studied for a short time at the medical field service school at carlisle, Pa.

From Carlisle the young army doctor was transferred to the Philippine Islands and he spent the three years in foreign service at Fort Stotsenburg.

From there he was ordered back to the States, to March Field, Cal. But before he could report for duty - in mid-ocean in fact - he was ordered to the School of Aviation at Randolph Field. He attended the school for a time and on the completion of his work was sent to March Field for two years' service as flight surgeon there.

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In February, 1938, Dr. Carlson - by that time holding a captain's commission - was returned to Randolph Field as director of the department of psychology at the School of Aviation Medicine.

Since returning to Randolph, Captain Carlson has been working in co-operation with Dr. Richard S. Lyman of Duke university and army research physicians like himself on brain wave research. Captain Carlson's efforts are concentrated on making a study of pilot selection.

Principal value to aero-medical scientists in the brain wave tests may come in supplying a new method for the measurement of brain fatigue in pilots and the effects of high altitude, lack of oxygen and emotional stress in hastening this fatigue.

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Captain Carlson is not the kind of man who likes publicity and so much of his work is never brought to the attention of the public. Then, too, it's not in the realm of things easily grasped by the average mind and so little recognition except fromhis colleagues has come to him.

But his ability is unquestioned. There is a possibility that he will be awarded a major's commission this summer, and if he wins it, he will be one of the youngest if not the youngest major in the army medical corps.

So Captain Carlson has proved himself. He knew what he wanted and through ability and hard workhe earned what he has today. And that same ability and diligence will in all probability bring substantial contributions to the field of aero-medical science in the days to come.

NOTE: Col. Carlson died August 10, 1972. Luretta (Bradley) Carlson was born March 5, 1906, and died December 10, 1981. Peter Bradley Carlson (Yeoman, U.S. Navy) was born in March 29, 1933, and died October 16, 2007. They were interred at Fort Sam Houston National Cemetery, San Antonio, Texas.

Photograph courtesy of Globe-Gazette

Transcription and note by Sharon R. Becker, November of 2014

Cerro Gordo Biographies maintained by Lynn Diemer-Mathews.
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