Alfred Skippen (Dr), Wellington Co, Ontario contributed by Bryan King, bking@sprint.ca & Chris Hopfenspinger typed by Sandra McLellan written by Elda Skippen McDaniel, youngest daughter of Dr. and Mrs. Alfred Skippen, March 1976, residing in Glendale, California Alfred Skippen, M.D. was born on Manetoulin Island, located in the Canadian side of Lake Huron, Nov. 30th, 1859. He was Grandmother Skippen's twelvth child. Uncle Charlie (Evelyn's father) was the only child who was younger. When my father was just able to walk out in the yard, he saw a pretty gray something in a hollow of the ground and walked in to it. He had landed in the middle of a pile of hot ashes that had been taken out of a wood-burning stove. The top covering that looked gray had hardly changed from a red-hot mass. When lifted from the ashes, both of his heel were completely burned and all toes had to be taken from the foot. The soles of both feet were minus coverings of flesh, only bones were left. Grandmother seemed to think nothing could be done for little Alfred, but Mrs. Hawes, a neighbor across the road, took him and decided she could save his life. Everyone thought he would be a cripple. For years his older sisters and brothers took him in a little wagon from their home to Mrs. Hawes' and at times home again. No one ever thought of taking him to school. By the time he was seventeen he was able to walk in shoes that were padded with very soft wool. So he started to school when seventeen years of age. It was humilitating to be in the first grade with children who were six or seven years old. Alfred determined to take all eight grades in two years and at ninteen entered high school. When his uncle, Bob King, saw how he longed for an education, he took Alfred to his home. By studying Latin and other subjects while working in the King home for his board and room, he was able to become a teacher in a country school. He taught in a district near the Dyer farm. Charlie and Joe Dyer were two of his pupils. Near the school was a church and it was there that Dad first saw Mother as she was playing the church organ. On New Years Day, 1884, Alfred Skippen and Sarah Elizabeth Dyer were married. The summer of 1959 I attended the Dyer Reunion and Cousin Carl Dyer's wife, Ariel, took me to see the old school and church where Mother always played the organ. The old organ was stored in a back room of the church and in the rear of the building was a small cemetery where on one of the tombstones was the name Edna May Skippen, my sister who lived only two weeks. When my older sisters, Albie and Mercy, were babies, Dad decided to become a doctor and within a few years graduated from Toronto University. About 1895 Dad became a victim of the dreaded thing called consumption, in later years known as tuberculosis. Toronto doctors said there was nothing more that could be done for him. Someone suggested that he might be able to live a few more years if he could be in a high and dry location. One man said that he heard of some person who went to Payette, Idaho to recover. Dad had never heard of the town, but as a last resort, bought a ticket for that place over three thousand miles west. Mother felt sure she would never see him again. With three little girls and a baby in her arms she faced hard years. Dad was very ill and as the train drew into Omaha, Nebraska the trainmen did not want a death on their train so they put him off at the depot. Dad never knew who took him to a hotel where he stayed until he was able to get back on a train to Idaho. On February 22, 1899 Dad stood on the platform of the old depot in Payette. He said the sun was bright and the sky as blue as indigo. There was no fog or damp air like he had felt in Toronto. He stood in the sun wondering what to do when a woman asked him is he was - So and So. He said no. Some relative of her husband was suppose to get off of that train. She said he was a consumptive. A tent had been placed in the back yard and that relative could stay there until he was better or died. Dad told her that he had come to Payette to try to get rid of consumption. She could see Dad was so sick he could not stand there by the depot. Across the street in front of a small boarding and rooming house was a bench so the lady helped him to get there and told him to sit there until the next train came and if the relative was not on it, she would take him home to the tent in her yard. No relative appeared so Dad was soon on a bed on the benchland above the the Payette River. Now that part of the bench is known as Fruitland. After months of good food, plenty of sunshine, and dry air, Dad became stronger and wanted to help his benefactors. At that time the sagebrush land around there was being surveyed by Mr. ?. He suggested that maybe Dad would be strong enough to hold one end of the line for him as he surveyed. By summertime he was feeling well enough to start a medical practice around Payette. A letter went to Mother asking her to sell everything and leave for Idaho. Poor Mother, many years later she told me that she felt she was going to the end of the earth. Somehow she managed to start west with Albie, Mercy and Annie, each carrying their big doll in one hand and a small valise in the other. I was only a baby so Mother had to carry me. In the meantime, Dad had rented a house in Payette large enough for one front room to become his office. Soon he acquired patients and he was really living again. In a couple of years he helped start the Christian Church, joined the Odd Fellows Lodge, and his medical practice was booming. Because of slughs near the river, mosquitoes were numerous and caused malaria which was dreaded by all who lived in the Payette River Valley. Dad became so plaqued with the disease he decided to move to a higher and drier location. Emmett, Idaho need another doctor so our family moved there when I was four years old. A year before that, Uncle Charlie Skippen (Dad's brother), left Canada and had located on a ranch at the edge of Emmett. Aunt Lina and Uncle Charlie had two boys and a girl. Evelyn was about four, George and Errett were a few years older. The fall Evelyn and I were six years old we started school at the old Wardwell Grade School. Miss DeMent was the first grade teacher that year. The following year our teacher was Miss Plowhead. By the time I was eight years old (1905) Dad was sick again. He began to look for higher, drier ground. Our next move was Sweet, Idaho. The towns of Ola, Horseshoe Bend, and Sweet needed a doctor so Dad started a drugstore at Sweet and in his buggy drawn by two lively horses, he became a real country doctor. Several times his horses ran away, leaving him hurt on lonely mountain roads. The timber and farming land about twelve miles above Sweet was being homesteaded. There was a post office called Pinhurst, Idaho but most of the settlers called it Drybuck. Dad homesteaded one hundred and sixty acres where there were considerable trees of pine and fir. A log cabin was built near a cold spring and Mother and I lived there all year with Dad and the girls coming and going most of the time from Sweet. We lived there for three years. During that time typhoid fever almost claimed Dad's life. That was the second time that no one thought Dad could live but evidently our Gracious Lord wanted him spared for many more years of service. Our family was together again after "proving-up" on our homestead and Sweet was our home. Between the years of 1908 and 1919 Mercy and Alpheus Boynton were married, Albie and Walter Day, and Annie and Harry Sweet. The year 1916 I graduated from Intermountain Institute of Weiser, Idaho, and then started working in the Bank of Sweet. At the foot of Big Squaw Butte, a couple of miles from town, hot mineral springs flowed out of a rocky hillside. A natatorium had been built and people of the nearby country and even from Emmett came summer and winter to play in the warm water. About 1914 Dad bought the ranch and property around the springs. Fruit and vegetables grew large and lucious as they were watered by the warm mineral water. During the spring of 1919 Dad came in contact with poison ivy and became deathly ill. No remedy seemed to help. Finally he was taken to a Portland hospital. The reports coming from the hospital were so disheartening I decided to give up my position in the Bank of Sweet and went to Portland to ascertain his condition. Within a few weeks Dad was able to return to the Hot Springs and that fall sold everything and moved to Portland where I had already found a position at the First National bank. Within the following year Dad began his practice of medicine and continued for the following twenty-eight years in Oregon. Although he had his degree from Toronto University as a surgeon, he operated less while in Portland, believing too many operations were given when there were other methods of extending life. Mother was seventy-six years of age at the time of her death on May 22, 1938. Ten years later, May 8, 1948, Dad passed on at the age of eighty-eight. *********************************************** Notes from Bryan King, bking@sprint.ca In the first paragrah it states that Alfred Skippen was born on Manitoulin Island on Nov. 30, 1859. This is wrong, he was born in East Garafraxa Township, on that date, at their farm, called "Pine Farm". Most of the family moved to Manitoulin Island in 1871. The Hawes farm is located very close to the Skippen farm, so this part of story is probably true. Uncle Bob is Robert King. *********************************************** Notes from Albie Skippen Day, February 18, 1959, Emmett, Idaho My father, Alfred Skippen, was born Nov. 30, 1859 and died May 8, 1948 in Portland, Oregon. Mother, Sarah Elizabeth Dyer Skippen was born Jan. 4, 1862 and died May 22, 1938 in Portland, Oregon. They both were born in E. Garafraxa, Wellington County. I was born July 12, 1886. Mercy Emiline (Boynton) was born July 31, 1887. Both at Conningsby, Erin Twp, Wellington County. Annie Mayben (Sweet) was born Feb. 9, 1889 at Hopedale, Erin Twp and Elda May (McDaniel) on Jul 2, 1897 at Grand Valley, Dufferin County. There was also a baby girl that died in Toronto. Dad lived with Uncle Bob King and attended School at Marsoille. I believe he was 17 or 18 years old when he attended Fergus High School and graduated. Then went to Normal School at Ottawa and graduated with a life diploma. When Annie was a baby he went to Toronto to Medical School at the University of Toronto. I have his diploma and he graduated in 1892. He practiced first at Hillsburg, I believe, in 1894 for several years. Then at Grand Valley. On account of his health he left Canada, arriving in Payette, Idaho, U.S.A. Feb. 22, 1898. Then he moved to Emmett, Idaho in 1902. Later he moved to Sweet, Idaho in 1905 and had a drug store there as well as practicing medicine. Oct. 21, 1919 the folks moved to Portland, Oregon where he lived until he died May 8, 1949. The last few years of his life he was retired. If you knew my father, you will remember he never would give up and didn't until the last years of his life after he had fallen and broken his hip. He had 3 pegs put in it and it healed perfectly but he just hadn't vitality enough left at his age to regain his strength. On Jan 1, 1918 he became a member of the American Association of Progressive Medicine, taking post-graduate work in Chicago and also in Detroit for a few weeks. Dad and Mother were married Dec 25, 1883. They celebrated their 50th wedding anninversary in Portland 1933. Alfred Skippen owned a drug store in Sweet and also in Pearl, Idaho. With miners going up to Thunder Mountain business was very good. He also bought a ranch at the foot of Squaw Butte which was near a hot mineral spring where many of the local townspeople would come. The area was surrounded by an orchard with all kinds of fruit trees. Alfred Skippen was very much ahead of his time in his views of medicine. He believed that too many operations were being given where there were other methods of extending life. Many times the medical community did not agree with him.