Des Moines Tribune

Des Moines, Polk County, Iowa

September __, 1951

A RUGGED START BUT HE MADE IT

by Herb OWENS

DAVIS CITY, IA. – Down in the rugged bush country of Missouri, south of Corydon, a pioneering family lived off the land, bartering pork for coffee, sugar, salt, soda and shoes. There were six sons and four daughters living with their parents in a one-room log house, with loft. Their winter caps, socks, mittens and underclothing were hand-knitted from home-spun-wool. Their summer hats were home-cured and woven rye straw.

The family got to town about twice a year – but never was there a dollar to spend. Only fresh butchered pork to trade with – and only for necessities.

Of the six sons, four became physicians and surgeons. Three of them practiced in Iowa. It’s a very interesting, but very long, story – and you can only get a sketch of it in several hours with Dr. Guy Pace REED, 76 – only surviving son.

:I’m probably one of the few people alive today who has washed a sheep, clipped it, picked out and combed the wool, spun the yarn and wove the cloth for material which my mother and sisters could make me clothing,” said Dr. REED, who came here in 1902 to build a practice in the Grand river valley.

“Everybody in our family worked. When boys were 6, they had learned to peg and extra sole on their shoes, the only store clothes they owned.

SCHOOL

When REED was 12, the Milwaukee railroad came through a mile from his home, and the town of Powersville was established. There was a school, but tuition was $2 a month.

“Dad traded a barrel of molasses to the superintendent for the tuition of my brother and me,” he said. “Then a young doctor, a fellow who had studied in Germany, came to town. I, who had never owned a store suit and never had a dollar to spend, decided to be a doctor – and to study in Europe.”

REED, however, became a school teacher – with 48 tough students. He was tutored in Latin by the town banker – but he was tutored in self-defense by intuition. He carried a revolver to school.

Of his students, however, he’s proud today of two: Mabel WALKER WILLEBRANT, famous attorney, and Charles AVERY, University of Montana president.

COLLEGE

After premedic work at University of Missouri, REED had a year at Keokuk Medical college and two years – in which he did three years’ work – at St. Louis College of Physicians and Surgeons. Graduated in 1899, he practiced two years at mercer, Mo., before returning to St. Louis for a fourth year’s work. Meantime, he married Edith SHELBY – in 1900. She is still his “bride,” in robust health.

Dr. REED, honored by the community this summer, battled all the odds here – lack of roads, lack of facilities, snows, rains and floods. Yet he has performed “almost every type of major operation” in the homes of his patients – and, occasionally, he still operates.

How he almost drowned, clinging to the back of his buggy while a team of horses swam over the flooded Grand at 3 a.m., is but one of the “thrillers’ of his life.

SONS

The greatest blow of his life came in 1945 when Dr. Roe REED, on of the two sons, died at Clearfield. The other son, Shelby REED, is a California hotel man. There are three grandchildren, one a soldier in Korea; Julie REED, 11, who lives here; and Patricia REED, who got a mater’s degree at S.U.I. – and who is studying medicine now in Philadelphia.

Remember how a little boy vowed to be a doctor and study in Europe? In 1912, Dr. REED left his practice; he went to the university of Vienna, Austria, and studied surgery and diagnosis.

Dr. Guy Pace REED, 76, of Davis City and his grand- So, a youth who came out of the

daughter, Julie REED, 11, at his office Missouri hills at 20 rose to fulfill a

boyhood ambition at 37. And at 76,

he looks back on those boyhood days and says, “We didn’t have a dollar – but it was a bountiful life.”

SOURCE: genealogical and historical clippings of Pearl Veva (BRAMON) FOLAND