Dr. F. W. Henderson

As told by John M. Holderman to Arena Mueller & P. Casey Morgan on October 5, 2019. Edited for flow and clarity.

Doc Henderson was not a rich man. He worked out of an office in the Medical Arts Building. Well, when he retired, he got on the news (Everyone listened to the news at noon on KVOO) and announced that anyone that owed him any money…forget it.

And then he went on to say… if you needed any medical…. to come by his house. He said, if you still had issues or wanted to be seen, just come by the house and he would treat you. He had built in his old front screened porch and that’s where he would see folks.

He used to stop us kids in the neighborhood, and kinda just give us a physical, there on the street. Look us over and look in our throat. I can remember one time, I had a sore throat, a real bad sore throat. And so, I went on my own to doc Henderson and told him what my problem was. He gave me a thing that you squeeze down… sulphur powder. I went home and my mother said “Whatda you got there?” and I said “Well, I went by doc Henderson’s to see about my sore throat.” And she said “Well, what did he charge you?” I said “Charge?” She made me go back around and pay him, I think it was two dollars or something. 

And he operated on my foot one time. I had gotten some glass in there. It wasn’t healing, and it started to weep. And I finally told me mother ‘cause I couldn’t walk on the sidewalk, had to walk on the grass. He come ‘round to the house, had me lay down on my stomach on the piano bench… and a couple of my older siblings sat on me to hold me down. He did not do any deadening and he made an incision and took that piece of glass out. Didn’t know what it was until he got it out of there.

References:

Photograph by A. Mueller, October 2019. Dr. F.W. Henderson’s House

Holderman, J. (2019, October 5). Personal interview. Also present were C. Holderman and P. Casey Morgan.
The Corpus Christi Caller Times. October 4, 1951.