"Dr. Carter Day" was celebrated
by the people of Bells in 1 November 1956 because of his years of devoted
service to the citizens of this area. During his 58 years of practicing
medicine in the Bells/Savoy/Whitewright area, he delivered more than 3,000
babies, mostly in the home.
He was born near Bells, but grew up
near Bonham. After graduating with honors from Bonham High School, he attended
the Georgia College of Eclectic Medicine and Surgery, then entered
the American Medical College, St Louis, MO and Tulane Polyclinic, New Orleans,
LA. He became a deacon in the Baptist Church, a member of the American
Medical Association, the Grayson County Medical Society, the State Board
of Medical Examiners, and the Masonic Lodge.
In 1901 Dr. Carter began practicing
medicine in Savoy and continued there for twenty-two years. Then
he moved to Whitewright and stayed only a couple of years before moving
to Bells in 1926. At one time, Dr. Carter was one of four doctors in Savoy.
Even a small town needed several doctors because house calls were the accepted
method of treatment. This took much of the doctor's time as travel was
not all that fast.
In 1904, he married Maude Frances
Short of Savoy. Their children were Pat, Charles W. (Charlie), Winnie Belle,
and Annie Bess. Pat died young; Charlie married and had three children;
Winnie married W. M. May and had one child, and Ann married M. D. Johnson
and had one child. Grandchildren of Dr. Carter were Judy Ann Johnson, William
Carter May, Charles W. Carter Jr., Sharon Elizabeth Carter, and James Neal
Carter. His wife Maude Carter, who was dedicated to community service,
died in June 1931 in Bells. In 1939 Dr. Carter married Ethel
Belote.
Charles Smith Carter, the son of James
Winston and Sarah Ann (Fitzgerald) Carter, was born near Bells, Texas,
1 November 1878. His father came to Texas from Missouri in 1871; while
his mother, the daughter of William Patrick and Emily Belle (Downing) Fitzgerald
of Ector, was a native Texan. Dr. Carter's siblings were Pat, Winston,
Nora, and Beryl.
Soon after Dr. Carter began his practice,
he was called to the home of a child sick with red measles. After attending
the child, he went by his aunt Nora (Fitzgerald) Bell's home in Savoy.
There he played with her infant son, Homer Bell. Remembering he had not
washed or changed his clothing, he left immediately saying, "I pray I have
not infected this baby." But he had and Homer died of red measles a few
weeks later. Dr. Carter learned a hard lesson from this experience. From
that time on, he was most particular regarding the spread of diseases.
It would stand to reason that his aunt, who had no other children, would
have blamed her nephew for her child's death, but she did not. He remained
her favorite nephew and was remembered in her will. I heard that story
many times as we were often at Nora Bell?s for Sunday dinner as she was
my mother's aunt. A big picture of little Homer was on the
wall. After Nora Bell died, Dr. Carter gave me her family Bible and
some family pictures.
I remember so many things about "Uncle
Doc" as he was a big part of my life as I grew up. He had a way of
walking that was crisp, snappy and unlike any other. All of
us children took his little pink pills, which was actually calomel, and
had our sore throats swabbed with a mercury solution. Both were commonly
used by doctors during that period. I remember watching his mother,
Sarah/Sallie Carter, chip ice from a big block of ice in the top of the
ice box. She accidentally stabbed her palm and said, "I guess I'll have to
have Charles tend to this. But when he was a little boy, I soaked his cuts
and such in coal oil (kerosene)." At that time, Dr. Carter was living
across the street from the old school and had his office on the main street
in back of the drug store. Later, he built a home on the "Y" with
an office in his yard.
When I think of Aunt Sally, Dr. Carter's
mother, I always remember the story I heard so often about the death of
her little son Pat. It seems she just couldn't get over the death of her
child. She would walk about wringing her hands and saying if only she could
see him one more time and know his body was safe and dry. Finally her husband
had the body exhumed for her to view. When she saw that it was dry and
in perfect condition, she was consoled.
Dr. Carter tended my family's medical
needs from coming to our home five miles north of Bells twice a day for
months to dress my younger sister's burns to draining my lung during a
bout of pneumonia. When my older sister had a bad case of scarlet fever,
he cared for her and ordered a new serum for the other children.
My older sister, born in 1922 at Aunt Nora Bell's house in Savoy, was delivered
by Dr. Carter. This happened because as time for her birth grew near, my
dad would take my mother there each day while he was away from the house.
Around 1930 when Charlie, teenage
son of Dr. Carter, was visiting on our farm, a wolf was killed by one of
the men. As the men prepared to kill her litter of pups, Charlie
pleaded with his dad to allow him to have one of them, pointing out that
he could keep it in the window of the drug store, which Dr. Carter ran
at that time. It was finally decided he could display it for a few
weeks. Time slipped by and when the pup was about half grown, it escaped
the window. All assumed it had gone back to the wild. But when it became
almost impossible for the people of the Methodist Church (the one
that later burned) to tolerate the terrible odor in their building,
the wolf was discovered dead under the building.
Dr. Carter looked forward to our big
threshing dinners during hay baling time at the farm. He enjoyed sitting
on the banks of the farm ponds and shooting whatever fowl happened
to come into his range. He took my younger sister and me to our
first circus (a very small traveling show that came to Bells) and bought
us Cracker Jacks. As I was growing up, he would sometimes lecture
me on such subjects as dating, morals, and money.
In his declining years, Dr. Carter
spent much time in bed. He was the first in Bells to install an antenna
and buy a television set. The reception was poor and the screen was filled
with snow most of the time. None-the-less, he seemed to enjoy it.
This pioneer general practitioner,
who was connected to so many lives in the Bells area, died 9 December 1959
at Bells and is buried at Sunnyside Cemetery at Savoy, TX, next to the
mother of his children, Maude Carter.
Compiled by:
Lora B. Tindall
RESEARCH LOG: Denison Herald Newspaper
article re Dr. Carter's 78th Birthday, 1956; The History of Grayson County by Grayson County Frontier Village 1979, p 213 by his daughter
Ann Carter Johnson; Family word-of-mouth stories; Gravestone readings,
Savoy,
