Tyner's 'Doc' and Missus To Observe Golden Wedding Soon

The furor caused by a false rumor of their death last winter was enough to convince us that Dr. and Mrs. A.A.Thompson, of the Tyner community, are its two most beloved residents.
  And, indeed, after leaning on Doc and Mrs. Doc for medical care, church and civic support, and solid friendship for more than 43 years, Tyner and area citizens had cause for alarm!
  The Thompsons, who will celebrate their golden wedding anniversary on Dec, 24th, have a lot to look back on...

When they were married in 1899, the head of the family was, as now, a professional man. But at that time it was not medicine, but teaching, which provided a livelihood for the newlyweds. Mr. Thompson taught for two years at West High School(when the old barn served for classrooms), one and one-half year at Snyder school, and a winter at Donaldson before entering the Medical College of Indiana at Indianapolis in 1902.
  A secret itch for the physician's knowledge had been chafing at Doc's heart for a long time --"Ever since I carried cough syrup to school in my pocket and it seeped all over the floor," laughs Dr. Thompson heartily --"that's the first time I was ever called Doc!"

On graduating in the spring of 1905, the Thompsons went to LaPaz with their first son, Russell, now living in Chicago, where Doc practiced for a period of one and one-half years.
The first baby he delivered, Wayne Hilderbrand, is still living in the vicinity, about a mile west of LaPaz. Doc Thompson's second baby, Mrs. Ruth Benedict Rudd, is now a Plymouth resident, and mother of six children.
Since that early beginning, the doctor estimated that he has brought about 4,000 children (half the population of Plymouth) into the world!
  When Tyner's physician, Dr. Sawson, left the community, townspeople successfully urges Dr. Thompson to take over his practice.

After the Thompsons were transplanted in Tyner, they became parents of three more sons, Dwight, of near Tyner; Gene, of Indianapolis, and Dr. John Thompson, of South Bend. Now they can boast of four grandchildren, John's sons, Johnny and Larry, and Dwight's sons, Dean and David--
  The horse-and-buggy days are still "vivid" in Doc Thompson's mind, and in the mind of his wife, who saw him off so conveyed on many a dark and stormy night!

"Many's the time I wrestled with snow drifts and had to loosen the horse and ride on his back," recalls Doc fondly.    Another time his horse slipped the bridle and dashed away, leaving his master to slide across the road in a buggy and hit a post.
   On one particular occasion when the whole town was snowbound, the ingenious doctor devised a way to carry his patient, a woman with a ruptured appendix, to the county hospital in Plymouth.

"We started at 4 p.m. with staple pullers and hammers and went across field and fence chopping our way through", relates Doc, "and arrived at the hospital at 2 a.m. On the way home we got stuck about where the Hiss farm now is and had to spend the night at the bus station. Next day we hopped on the passenger train and rode back to Tyner."
   During the influenza epidemic following the first World War (in which Dr. Thompson served) he went for three weeks without going to bed.
   "I had to sleep in my sleigh between houses," says the doctor, who found flu victims in nearly all of them.
   Once he was practically kidnapped from his home when a desperate man sought a doctor in the middle of the night-- "He said he wasn't going unless I got up and came with him," reports Doc, "so out in the country we went!"

The sight of Doctor Thompson and his big suitcase was a common one to Tyner dwellers years ago. "I carried my own towels, soap, pans, and even a laughing gas machine," he remembers.
  Dr. and Mrs. Thompson, who met when both attended the same church, were married in the home of the bride's parents, Mr. and Mrs. Madison Stoops, between Plymouth and Tyner at noon, Dec. 24th, by a Rev. Mattox, pastor of the Tyner E.U.B. church. She was 19, he 21.
   Next Sunday, Dec. 18th, they will celebrate their anniversary with an open house from 2 until 4 p.m. at the Tyner E.U.B. church, where they hope to see all their friends and relatives. Preceding the event, ladies of the church will serve dinner at noon to the honored couple and their family.
   The doctor and his wife are hoping the press of duty won't interfere with the big occasion, but on the following day Doc will be on deck for business, as usual, which includes office hours from 8 until 12 o'clock and house calls in the afternoon (and evening, too.)
   Seems there's just no rest for this kindly man who, when asked if he didn't plan to retire, laughed, "I planned to do that years ago", he exclaimed!
   The couple did admit, however, that they'd like to revisit the sunny Florida clime where they vacationed for six weeks last winter.