Looking Back in Time: Memories of Life in a Chiropractic Home

In this episode, I had the privilege of sitting down for a reflective conversation with two remarkable sisters: Carol and Connie.
Carol is 81 years old, and Connie is 78. They are the daughters of the late Dr. Wilmer Jung, who practiced in Neenah, Wisconsin from the 1940s well into the 1980s.

Together, we revisit what it was like growing up in a chiropractic home—literally, a home-and-office combination where life and practice blended seamlessly. The sisters share fond memories of watching their father help so many in their community, and the joy of tagging along on family trips when he attended chiropractic seminars. They also remember their mother as the heart of the office—an office manager who cared for the staff, connected deeply with patients, and embodied the same support systems we all rely on in our practices today.

Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:16

Welcome to another episode of the Wisconsin Chiropractic Association Podcast, Back to Basics. My name is Chris Rush. I'm a chiropractor, and I'm president of the Wisconsin Chiropractic Association and your host for today's episode titled Looking Back in Time: Memories of Life in a Chiropractic Home. So recently I had the privilege of sitting down for a reflective conversation with two remarkable sisters, Carol and Connie. Carol is 81 and Connie is 78. They are the daughters of the late chiropractor, Dr. Wilmer Young, who practiced in Nina, Wisconsin from the early 1940s well into the 1980s. Together, they revisited what it was like growing up in a chiropractic home. And when I say chiropractic home, I literally mean a home office combination where everyday life and dad's practice blended seamlessly. The two sisters share fond memories of watching their father help so many people in the community and then the joy of tagging along on family trip when he attended chiropractic seminars. They also remember their mother as the heart of the office. She was the office manager who cared for the staff, connected deeply with the patients, and embodied the same support systems very similar to what we rely on every day in our practices. As the conversation unfolded, a couple things struck me. Plenty has changed in chiropractic since back in the 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s, and 80s. But what also surprised me is how similar some things in chiropractic remain the same. And as we got through our conversation, it was very evident that family memories can be some of the most powerful influences in a child's life. Here I am talking to two sisters in their late 70s and 80s, and they continue to be impacted by the legacy that their father left behind, and it will continue with them forever. And there were definitely a few teaching moments along the way. Carol and Connie remember how their father was truly a gifted chiropractic adjuster, someone who wasn't afraid to get the job done, get in there, and get after it. And Carol, the older of the two sisters, has lived all over the country. She's gone to chiropractors her entire life, several after her father passed, and she clearly states that we don't always see that kind of chiropractic touch in today's chiropractic adjusters. It was kind of a hard truth to take, one that I considered not including in this podcast, but one that I think we all need to hear. Maybe that's a message that's worth letting sink in. Anyway, I hope you enjoy my conversation with Carol and Connie, two proud daughters of a chiropractic legend, Dr. Wilmer Young. Well, ladies, thank you very much for joining me today. I've basically got Carol and Connie here, and both uh daughters of Dr. Wilmer Young, who practiced in the 1940s, 50s, 60s, 70s, and 80s. So quite a legacy of chiropractic in Nina, Wisconsin. So, Carol, I understand you're 81 years old. Yes. And why don't you tell me a little bit about yourself?

SPEAKER_00 3:17

Uh well, I was born and raised here, but uh I moved shortly after I married when I was 21. So I've lived on the East Coast, West Coast in several places in between. I've moved many different times, uh various places. I was divorced once uh and uh married, and he died, and uh they both died. That's pretty awful to send along here, but that's part of life, right? Isn't it though? And so I'm single now.

SPEAKER_03 3:49

So you lived in the homestead in Nina in a chiropractic family. At what age were you when you moved up and out?

SPEAKER_00 3:56

21.

SPEAKER_03 3:57

21 years old.

SPEAKER_00 3:58

See, I'm sorry, but I do have to tell you, I told you I have amnesia. Yeah, and I can't remember some things.

SPEAKER_03 4:05

Yeah, you took a little fall recently, and you're struggling with a little memory right now.

SPEAKER_00 4:09

You bet.

SPEAKER_03 4:10

Well, we're gonna pull as much out of the out of you as we can. But I know she can help. Well, she being Connie, your sister, three years younger than you, 78 years old. And Connie, you stuck around Nina, Wisconsin, and actually worked in your father's office for a number of years. But let's hear a little bit about you, Connie.

SPEAKER_01 4:26

Okay, well, 78 years old and been married for going on 60 years.

SPEAKER_03 4:32

All right.

SPEAKER_01 4:33

Got married when I was 18.

SPEAKER_03 4:34

Sure. And here you are today.

SPEAKER_01 4:36

Here I am today.

SPEAKER_03 4:37

Ready to tell us all about your father's legacy and practice?

SPEAKER_01 4:41

What I can remember.

SPEAKER_03 4:42

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 4:43

Yes.

SPEAKER_03 4:48

So we're reflecting on the life of Dr. Wilmer Young, but before we dig deeper into Dr. Young's story, I want to give our listeners a quick, easy picture of the school he graduated from because it doesn't exist anymore, and the history is actually pretty interesting. So Dr. Young earned his chiropractic degree in the 1940s from Lincoln Chiropractic College. Lincoln was founded back in the 1920s by a group of four chiropractors who were professors at Palmer College of Chiropractic in Davenport, Iowa, and they wanted to put together a school with a stronger science training background. So at the time, chiropractic education was still developing, and a number of new colleges were popping up to try and shape what the profession should look like. Lincoln was one of those schools, and again, it focused heavily on the sciences, primarily anatomy and physiology, maybe a little bit less on philosophy. By the time Dr. Young was there, around 1942, Lincoln was a well-established, reputable chiropractic college. But as the decades moved on, the landscape of chiropractic education started shifting, accreditation requirements tightened up, scientific expectations increased, and many of the smaller schools found it hard to stay financially viable. Lincoln Chiropractic College continued teaching until 1971, when it graduated its final class. Again, Dr. Young graduated back in around 1942. After Lincoln closed, all of the records of its educational legacy were taken over by National College of Chiropractic in Lombard, Illinois, a larger, more established school that could preserve everything going forward. And then in 2000, National College of Chiropractic expanded its programs and officially became National University of Health Sciences. So even though Lincoln Chiropractic College is gone, Dr. Young's academic records live on today through National University of Health Sciences in Lombard. So that's Dr. Young's academic story. Both of you were born after your father was already a chiropractor. Do you have any recollection of what inspired your father become a chiropractor?

SPEAKER_00 7:00

Pretty much, I think made his decision was that uh he had an injury and uh got very interested in chiropractic as opposed to other medical kinds of treatments to correct uh his neck injury.

SPEAKER_03 7:16

So I'm I'm assuming if you practice that long, what year did your father pass?

SPEAKER_01 7:21

He passed in 86.

SPEAKER_03 7:23

In 86. So if your father passed away when he was 67 and he in 1986 and had a 40-year or 40 plus year career, he must have been in his early 20s or late teens when he was in college. And prior to that, he had an injury. So he must have an injury back when he was in high school. Right. That's do you know what kind of injury he had?

SPEAKER_01 7:44

He ran into a barbed wire fence, some barbed wire fencing, and it caught him in the neck, and he had a lot of problems with his neck for a while. And I think that's when he was looking, and chiropractic was just coming out around that time, wasn't it? And very, very new.

SPEAKER_03 7:58

Yeah, chiropractic was discovered in 1895, and then it had to be developed and then turned into a school, and then chiropractors came out, and uh, so somewhere along the lines there, probably in the late 20s or 30s, is when your father must have been exposed to chiropractic.

SPEAKER_01 8:14

That's what I'm thinking.

SPEAKER_03 8:15

And so then, fast forward, you two have childhood memories of growing up in a chiropractic home, and from what I understand, your father's practice was a home office combination, so all in one. The office was on the first floor, family homestead was on the second floor. So, what's your first recollection of your father being a chiropractor?

SPEAKER_00 8:39

When we got adjusted. All right, no, truly. Uh, because uh he he did adjust this very young, which he always continued to do with uh people who bring in their young, young children to be, you know, adjusted. And he really did, he was a good one.

SPEAKER_03 8:57

So did you did you think every dad was a chiropractor back then when you were just a little kid? Oh that's great, that's awesome. So you recall getting adjusted when you were just a little girl, both of you. And what about your recollection of patients coming to the house, which was his office? What was that like?

SPEAKER_01 9:20

We we never heard no. Actually, when I was real little, I never really understood that there was a lot of people coming in because we were upstairs most you know all the time. But um, when we did go downstairs, we would just walk through the waiting room most of the time. No, we'd go upstairs. Wanted to talk to mom to mom and uh because she worked for dad. So most of the time we stayed away from the office part of it when we were younger.

SPEAKER_03 9:45

Yeah, so your mom your mother was his receptionist, and did all assistants in in the office that was her role. Were there other people that worked in the office as well? This is back when you were a child, right?

SPEAKER_01 9:57

This is when I was a child. They had, I think, say three other people, I think it was Phyllis, Audie, Vi, and mom. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 10:07

All right. So patients would come in. Do you recall what type of hours your dad worked, as far as what time he started seeing patients in the morning and how late he would continue patient care throughout the day and evening?

SPEAKER_00 10:19

Eight o'clock until eight or eight or so at night. Eight, nine, and sometimes ten. I don't know. He um it depended, but he always had Thursdays off.

SPEAKER_03 10:31

The classic Thursday off. Is that what it is?

SPEAKER_00 10:33

I wondered about it because didn't you say you you had Thursdays?

SPEAKER_03 10:37

It's pretty common in chiropractic. You know, we want to see patients on Monday because it's coming off the weekend, and we want to see patients on Fridays, so they're feeling good for the weekend. So must have been practiced in pr in school. And I think a lot of the classes that chiropractors went to were held on Thursdays for continued education purposes, so it just kind of seems like a natural day where chiropractors are off if they're going to take a time off during the week.

SPEAKER_01 11:01

But yeah, he also had uh Tuesday afternoons off. All right, so he just worked on Tuesday mornings.

SPEAKER_03 11:07

Okay, so he'd start at eight o'clock in the morning and he would just see patients until the last patient was was done being seen, and that could be eight or nine o'clock at night.

SPEAKER_00 11:15

Mom would sometimes um have to say, Here, take this down to your dad. We'd have to give him food because he wouldn't get have time to come up. He was busy all the time.

SPEAKER_03 11:25

He was just busy up there.

SPEAKER_00 11:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 11:27

Okay. Do you ever recall any time on the weekends or holidays when the phone would ring and they would want to see Dr. Wilmer for an adjustment?

SPEAKER_01 11:36

All the time.

SPEAKER_03 11:37

All the time.

SPEAKER_01 11:38

And he went well, well, when he was when they were when he was younger, he went to a lot of uh homes. He had a portable adjusting table that he would take along.

SPEAKER_03 11:48

So he did house calls.

SPEAKER_01 11:49

Yes, he did. He did house calls, and if they could come in, they would come, he'd take them on weekend too.

SPEAKER_02 11:54

All right.

SPEAKER_01 11:55

And that was at the beginning. Yeah. So he was busy all the time. They even called him and he was up at the cottage, but that he didn't give up.

SPEAKER_03 12:02

Okay. All right. So back in the day, did you have like a different phone line for the office and for your personal residence, or was it all just one phone? All one. All one.

SPEAKER_00 12:12

I never could figure that out. No, maybe they just didn't do that then. I don't know. I don't know.

SPEAKER_03 12:16

But it doesn't surprise me that it was just one phone line. All right. So as young daughters at the time, did you have any office duties? Did you clean the office when you were younger, or did you have to do any filing or anything like that?

SPEAKER_01 12:31

No, mom was pretty good at doing all the filing. And we did have a cleaning that came in and we did two, three times a week, I think. And if there was something that needed to be done other days, yes, we did fill it up, but it was pretty well taken care of by people that worked for him and cleaning. So I know we didn't have to do much for that.

SPEAKER_03 12:50

And I'm always interested in uh the dress attire of a chiropractor as it's evolved. Uh I'm a chiropractor that I've been in practice for 35 years. When I first was in practice, it was expected to be, you know, wear a tie every day to work. Do you recall your dad's working attire?

SPEAKER_01 13:07

He had a uniform. He had a he had a button white side, yeah. White had that every day.

SPEAKER_00 13:13

Okay. Like a lab type uh, except it was uh short to the side and short kind of thing.

SPEAKER_03 13:19

Very clearly a clinical type of coat or cover-up and for a shirt.

SPEAKER_00 13:24

And as a matter of fact, uh he had everyone that worked for him do the same thing. They all wore a white, a nurse kind of thing.

SPEAKER_03 13:32

All right. Well, okay, so you mentioned nurse. Let's talk about your recollection of how well chiropractic was accepted back then in the health field area. So you know, today's age, we have medical doctors referring patients to chiropractors, we have chiropractors working with the medical community. There's chiropractors that are on staff at hospitals. So back in the 1940s and 50s, was it like that?

SPEAKER_01 13:58

Uh they did not like chiropractic at all.

SPEAKER_03 14:01

So it was a little bit of a turf war, maybe?

SPEAKER_00 14:04

I think it was more than turf war. Yeah. But I think it's what helped turn it turned me into a nurse. Is that I felt, hey, my dad was a chiropractor and I can be a nurse. I mean, it's like try to glue the two together, you know, somehow, which I could see a lot of as I was in nursing school, I'd say, why don't you go see a chiropractor? You know, that kind of thing, because I knew the difference.

SPEAKER_03 14:31

So did you did you experience firsthand being a nurse how chiropractic evolved and became more common when it came to healthcare?

SPEAKER_00 14:39

Well, I always I always thought of it as health care, always. Right. And uh when I went into nursing, I would say to certain people, have you ever tried chiropractic? Because it can really help you with blah, blah, blah, blah. I mean, I wasn't hesitant to bring up the fact that uh I knew what a chiropractor was and that they could really be beneficial.

SPEAKER_03 15:01

Sure. What do you remember as far as your father's equipment or techniques? Obviously, he was doing chiropractic adjustments, and some chiropractors pretty much held to only doing adjustments back in those days. Some chiropractors were more progressive and had other modes of therapy like ultrasound and other equipment.

SPEAKER_01 15:24

Dad had he had a plasmatic, he had diathermy, ultrasonic, x-ray, and um the traction table, and then the uh electrocardiogram.

SPEAKER_03 15:37

All right. Wow. So he had a lot of equipment that I would consider to be more progressive back then, and that might have some of the influence on going to uh Lincoln College of Chiropractic. Uh, that was a school that definitely was more progressive in areas above and beyond the chiropractic adjustment than, say, Palmer College, where chiropractic was initially uh started and developed. Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_01 16:03

You answered my question. I was curious which one was first.

SPEAKER_03 16:05

Oh, all right, gotcha. So, what about from a business standpoint? So your father was not only a healthcare provider in the community, but he was also a business owner. Do you recall your dad talking much about the business side of things, like going to the bank or any of that buying land or with a home or adding out of the home or that type of thing?

SPEAKER_01 16:29

Eventually, and um around in this around the first part of the 60s, he did buy a cottage.

SPEAKER_03 16:34

Oh, he did? All right.

SPEAKER_01 16:35

And other than that, um, all I remember is my mother saying, Oh, I'm going to the bank, and that was about it.

SPEAKER_03 16:41

Going to the bank, depositing that cash.

SPEAKER_01 16:45

We'd be sent. Or we'd be sent. Yeah, that's all right. We did. We did go when we had cars when we were younger.

SPEAKER_03 16:51

So growing up, do you remember the cost of a chiropractic adjustment?

SPEAKER_01 16:55

She would. Yes, it was five dollars.

SPEAKER_03 16:58

Five dollars for a chiropractic treatment.

SPEAKER_01 17:00

Right. And when that could include anything, that was everything.

SPEAKER_03 17:04

Anything that was someone came in for the first visit, they were examined, maybe an x-ray was taken and a channel.

SPEAKER_01 17:10

I definitely can't remember if it was extra. That part I don't remember, but I know his regular appointments were five dollars. And when he eventually had that um one table, the traction table, that he did charge a dollar.

SPEAKER_03 17:22

He charged an extra dollar for traction, right? So five dollars for the adjustment, six dollars if you get the traction.

SPEAKER_01 17:28

Right, and that was the one until that was probably into the um late 50s that he started getting when he had the traction table.

SPEAKER_03 17:35

I see. Do you have any recollection of how many patients he would see in an hour or throughout the course of the day? Was the whole schedule full?

SPEAKER_01 17:44

Sometimes the whole schedule would be full all day because I and it was usually every 20 minutes.

SPEAKER_03 17:48

Every 20 minutes he'd see another patient. All right.

SPEAKER_01 17:51

And that's how we sometimes fall behind because there was somebody that wanted to talk more, and he was not one to just shut somebody up and say it's I gotta get out of here, I gotta go to next patient.

SPEAKER_03 18:00

So was it always a financial exchange? Did your father ever barter?

SPEAKER_01 18:04

No.

SPEAKER_03 18:05

But I'm aware of it. It's always a financial exchange. And insurance really didn't come into the chiropractic picture until sometime into the 70s.

SPEAKER_01 18:13

Yeah, he there were a few back in the 60s that it started because I know he didn't like having to fill out all the paperwork with the insurance. That hasn't changed, by the way. That he didn't care for as much. Um, and mom, I think, usually was the one that did a lot of the filling out for the paperwork for the insurance.

SPEAKER_03 18:33

But so you have some recollection of insurance influencing chiropractic and reimbursement back then.

SPEAKER_01 18:39

And I think that's when they went up to a little bit. I think they went up to seven dollars. Uh and maybe it was just seven dollars for those that had insurance. I have no, I don't have a clue on that one. But just to make up for some of the time.

SPEAKER_03 18:51

And then you ended up as you grew up and after high school working in the office?

SPEAKER_01 18:56

Off and on. I didn't do a lot of it, but I when my mom was gone, she was gone for the week thing, and then I would fill in. Um, if the uh one that usually came in in the evening couldn't be there, I'd fill in there for two often, too.

SPEAKER_03 19:10

Do you recall from a business standpoint if you would consider your dad had a very successful practice? Like as you grew up, did you feel that you were middle class, or did you feel that you were economically higher or lower than middle class? Or do you have any recollection of that?

SPEAKER_01 19:27

If we were higher than middle class, it was never shown.

SPEAKER_03 19:30

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 19:30

I don't think we ever felt we ever had a need, or no.

SPEAKER_01 19:34

We I we never felt that we had a need for anything, but we never felt like we were rich or anything like that.

SPEAKER_03 19:40

So very normal upbringing, as far as you didn't feel like you were poor. No, I felt like we were poor, which you probably weren't if your parents bought a cottage up north.

SPEAKER_00 19:49

And there were many people at the time, and I don't know if that's in any of these questions or not, but it's many people during that time. We would I could hear from some people say, Oh, they're quacks.

SPEAKER_03 20:01

There is that biggie.

SPEAKER_00 20:03

That was a biggie, and that hurt. And I thought, you know, I just thought these people just are ignorant and they don't understand and they don't know. But um, that was said. Did you hear it? I don't know.

SPEAKER_03 20:16

I'm I was a little older than she was, so so did you hear that from your friends talking about your dad's a chiropractor?

SPEAKER_00 20:23

My friends would say that if um they had heard it from their parents.

SPEAKER_02 20:29

I see.

SPEAKER_00 20:29

It wasn't a thing um could because many of the people that we did go to school with, their parents were patients. My mom of my dad, I mean, and um so it was just some people that just wanted to be mean in my opinion. Kids being kids.

SPEAKER_01 20:49

I think it's a lot of the kids that were saying it were the ones that maybe had parents that were doctors.

SPEAKER_00 20:55

Well, and that could be too. That was uh there was a big thing with uh, yeah, if you were a DR. That was not uh a DC was never thought of as a doctor, right?

SPEAKER_03 21:10

Yeah, right at the time. Do you recall how your dad would feel about that? Would he just not pay attention to that, or did he get a little uptight about chiropractic and the lack of respect?

SPEAKER_00 21:21

Dad would let it let us know how he felt about it verbally. Uh but not oh, you know, not a signal. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 21:30

Meanwhile, you probably witnessed so many people get so much relief and benefit from your dad's treatment.

SPEAKER_00 21:39

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_03 21:39

Yes. So along those lines, Connie, what can you tell me about your recollection of your dad and helping other people?

SPEAKER_01 21:47

Well, I know that uh one lady I was coming home from school and I looked in the driveway of the parking lot and there was an ambulance there. Scared me. Going on. And uh they had when I walked into through the office because I was curious to see what instead of uh going to the side door, I went to through the waiting room, and the attendants were sitting there kind of waiting for her, and she had had them, she demanded that they bring her to that.

SPEAKER_03 22:18

Oh, she wanted an ambulance trip to your dad's office hospital because she had the fallen. I see.

SPEAKER_01 22:24

And she would demanded that she bring Dr. Young first. So they brought her there and and she couldn't walk in, but she walked out.

SPEAKER_03 22:33

Oh wow, fantastic.

SPEAKER_01 22:35

I don't know if they took her home or what happened after that. That's all I heard about it. But she but she walked out and she couldn't walk in.

SPEAKER_03 22:41

She was brought into the office via ambulance and walked out under her own power. That made you quite proud of your father.

SPEAKER_01 22:48

Very much, very much. And you have one about a friend too. I mean, somebody that you met in Texas.

SPEAKER_03 22:54

All right, Carol, how about you? Do you have any special stories or remembrance of your father helping someone? I did that that struck you?

SPEAKER_00 23:02

Uh I was living in Texas at the time, and I was at church, and I met this friend who introduced herself to me, and we were just talking about things, and it got around to um our parents, I guess. You know, what'd your parents do or where were you from? And I said, I was from Nina. And she said, Oh, Nina, she knew somebody in Nina, and uh she uh told me who it was, and it happened to be my dad. And she said that she went to him in it when she was she said she uh could walk again because of him. Wow, so I thought, well, I liked my dad in the first place, but that it was like powerfulness.

SPEAKER_03 23:45

So, yeah, another proud moment for your father. Right. So you obviously learned things with your father and probably your mother too. So that she was the office manager. Yeah. Uh, can either one of you tell any stories about things you've learned from your father that you carried on and maybe you've helped people with? Carol, do you have anything?

SPEAKER_00 24:07

Well, because I went into nursing, yeah, I always stressed to people when I felt that it looked as though a chiropractor could help them better than what we were doing. I'd offer always offer that out. Um, I don't think I ever got fired from anybody for doing it. That's good. But um, yeah, I I I did carry that always through that uh chiropractic was extremely valuable and and uh passed that along to many patients that I had.

SPEAKER_03 24:39

Sure. What about your sister? Do you have anything that Connie learned from your dad?

SPEAKER_00 24:44

Everything, I think. She was um she did most of the work. Um I went on to school and she was still at home. So she would work down with him more closely than I ever did. She's got his strong hands, I think. She really can dig into somebody's shoulders and back and really relieve stress. It's she does a good job.

SPEAKER_03 25:10

So she learned from your dad how to find the tight spots in the muscles. I bet she did. Really learn how to work that out? Would you agree with that, Connie?

SPEAKER_01 25:16

I try. Yeah, she tries. She does.

SPEAKER_03 25:19

She still does. What are some of the really fond memories that you have about your dad being a chiropractor?

SPEAKER_00 25:29

Uh constantly knocking on his door to ask him. It has nothing to do with this being a chiropractor, though. It is just saying, Dan, is it okay if I go to blah, blah, blah, or is can somebody spend the night? Mom said I should ask you. And mom and mom, you know, she'd ask your father. It was always a back and forth situation because it was so close, upstairs, downstairs, it was um a constant thing.

SPEAKER_03 25:57

So you'd ask your mom upstairs at home and he'd she'd send you downstairs to the office.

SPEAKER_00 26:02

Like it was a big deal.

SPEAKER_03 26:04

Did you have to interrupt him in between patients?

SPEAKER_00 26:07

We'd knock on the door, and if he'd seen busy, we'd just let it go until he'd come out. But he'd always come out and he did a good job, you know, asking, following through with our interfering with him. All right.

SPEAKER_01 26:21

Yeah, he never was mad or anything like that. He just he'd open the door and dad, can I have so-and-so come over or can I do this? What did your mother say? She said to ask you. Okay. And that was it. That was going into that. It's kind of a way to get away with doing it because dad very seldom said no. So we learned to play. It's the game.

SPEAKER_03 26:45

Any other proud moments of your father being a chiropractor?

SPEAKER_00 26:50

When I think about it, I think about just the number of people that he helped and that just um adored him, really. Oh, he did so much for me. You'd hear from many people that you didn't even really know until they knew who we were, like our last name. They'd say, Oh, oh my gosh, your is your dad? Yes, the chiropractor. Oh, I went to him, he was fantastic, you know. And he did we always heard good things, really good things. Yeah, I don't think I've ever heard anything bad. Never bad.

SPEAKER_03 27:25

She had a great great reputation in the community, and that had to give you a lot of sense of absolutely very proud.

SPEAKER_02 27:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 27:34

You both continue to see chiropractors today, several years after your father's been gone. Is there anything that you've noticed how chiropractic has evolved or changed?

SPEAKER_00 27:47

I have found that they are not as aggressive as my dad was. And in my opinion, that is wrong. I like somebody who get gets in there and gets the job done and does it. And, you know, I mean, he he did a wonderful job, but he he he was, I would say, more of an aggressive. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 28:10

He wasn't he wasn't shy about getting in there movements and bones.

SPEAKER_00 28:13

No, but he knew what he I always felt dad always knew what he was doing, and he he wasn't gonna force it.

SPEAKER_03 28:20

He knew his patients well to so he was a hands-on chiropractic adjuster. Very much so.

SPEAKER_01 28:27

Yeah, I don't think we ever mentioned this, but dad did have gowns for all the women to wear. Okay. So the back was open, sure. He could go down the whole spine and check each vertebrae as he went down to see if there was anything that needed to be corrected. Sure.

SPEAKER_03 28:40

So he was very particular in his assessment process.

SPEAKER_01 28:44

Right. And he didn't just do one spot here, one spot there. He would go down the whole thing, then he would do the hips, he would do the rest of the back, the neck.

SPEAKER_00 28:52

He ended up doing I I swear everything. I mean, he had did some people's ankles. Okay, you know, and adjust their ankles and uh knees, ankles, arms. You know, a lot of um well kid some of the kids from school, even, you know, would come in with uh sports sports kind injuries that you would help them up.

SPEAKER_01 29:13

Yeah. Uh-huh. He made he made back then in the 50s, I don't he made um like a brace more or less out of gauze and tape for somebody that might have had an ankle injury so it would stay in that position where it would walk. And he made that right while the you know the guy was right there.

SPEAKER_03 29:31

So fabricated his own support or a brace out of it. All right. Very cool. What about X-ray? You he had an X-ray machine.

SPEAKER_01 29:41

Right.

SPEAKER_03 29:41

Do you recall him showing you X-rays, or do you recall like I've got to be in the developing room with it because he had this one little room off of um off of the uh place in the back area and uh take x-rays the first day, and then he would have to develop those tanks at night and then make sure he timed it out right and the chemicals were the way they were supposed to be, and then the pictures were ready the next day.

SPEAKER_01 30:03

Right. And once we got in there, we weren't allowed to leave until it was done because we couldn't open the door. Yeah, we had to keep it closed. So yeah, but I remember I I wanted to know what he was doing, so I had to go in with him a few times.

SPEAKER_03 30:14

Do you ever remember accidentally opening the door and letting light get in?

SPEAKER_01 30:18

No, that I did not do. He said, No, do not open that door. So, and then a lot of times we develop black and white photos that we back then colored photos weren't really that much, but uh and so we sometimes we do develop our own uh photos. I never did I wasn't the one for that.

SPEAKER_03 30:39

So tell me about life outside the office. Like your father, did he have to go to seminars outside of the area?

SPEAKER_01 30:46

I know he'd come back from some places, but uh a lot of times we would go with him, but right, yeah, and make it a vacation. If we were going to California, he was going to a seminar or something there, we would make it a vacation. We had relatives in California and oh good trips. Yeah, we enjoyed those things. We enjoyed those things. We went to I think it was yeah, it was California, and he was going to a seminar down there, and his ultrasonic machine broke. So he took brought it along because he had purchased it from somebody in California, and we went to the store, and the store wasn't open, but it had a number to call. We called the number and they invited us to bring it over to their house. We took it over to their house. We ended up having dinner with them, and they were able to swim in their swimming pool. And we met Truman Bradley, uh science fiction theater back in the 50s. We met him, he was the next door neighbor.

SPEAKER_03 31:36

Wow. So I bet you haven't thought about that in a while. Well, Carol, you mentioned that as far as how chiropractic has changed from then till now, is you wish chiropractors today were as aggressive as your father was. So Connie, I'm gonna ask you now, how do you feel chiropractic has either changed or evolved over the many years?

SPEAKER_01 31:57

Well, I think after I've come here for adjustments and everything, because you helped me a lot that it's it's gotten better and they're accepted now where they weren't before, and you've expanded more, especially you here, because you've expanded now on the exercise programs and normally wasn't thought about back then.

SPEAKER_03 32:19

So, Carol, you seem to be a little bit more outspoken about how things have changed. If you had to speak for your father, what do you think your dad would say about chiropractic today?

SPEAKER_00 32:30

Oh, about it today. Oh, I don't know. I think he, I think he had, I think he was such a progressive, in my opinion, as far as what he would do and um what he felt would work for somebody, you know, right? And I felt that uh too many chiropractors today are kind of wishy-washy. Now, I've been to a number of them, and and it's they're like afraid to touch you sometimes, you know. And I just feel like dad just did a great job for so many people, and I just can't see how a lot of people. And I mean, I've I've lived a lot of places all over the country, and I've always seen a chiropractor wherever I've been, and I thought I thought, I'd never go back to that one again. I wonder what he what he ever does for people. Sure. You know, they don't seem to get to the I don't maybe I'm used to the cracking bone pit piece, but I figure if they can't do that, they're not getting anything to move. What are they doing? Then they're just a not just uh but a um physical therapist, in my opinion.

SPEAKER_03 33:43

Right. Donnie, do you have uh feeling of what your dad would feel about chiropractic today?

SPEAKER_01 33:48

Oh, I think he would be happy that it's expanded as much as it has and and grown to be more common grounds for people getting better.

SPEAKER_02 33:56

Right.

SPEAKER_01 33:57

And um, I think that his procedures were far beyond what a lot of the other ones were back then, and that he was very much uh interested in a lot more things like progress. But and I think he would be very happy with the way things are now as far as being accepted. And I think he would want people to be and see chiropractors before they decide on surgeries and and other things that could be more permanent damage to them, if that makes any sense. So all right.

SPEAKER_03 34:31

So all this talk about your dad, we can't forget about your mom. So, Connie, do you have a favorite mom story?

SPEAKER_01 34:39

Well, let's see, my mom was working in the office as the receptionist and the helper of the other equipment, and uh people would come in and they'd love to sit and talk with her. She was a very good listener, and she just always uh wanted to listen to people, and they really loved her for that. They really did. And one patient did come in and say, even if even if Dr. Young couldn't take me as a patient, I could still come in and talk to you. So I thought that was really nice. And she always would decorate the office to make it for Christmas Eve or Easter or whatever holiday was. We just made it more homey and comfortable for people, and people did comment on that, and they felt very relaxed. And they loved it when us kids came in too, because they would talk with us as um as kids, as kids. Well, they enjoyed it. Some I've got my I got grandkids, but they're far away, and so they would ask what we were doing at school, and and it was so it's it became like a family before the basics.

SPEAKER_03 35:39

Yeah, so she was a mom and she was also uh the office manager. Right, that's correct. Well, let's get to your dad and let's wrap this up. And can you tell me some lasting impressions or favorite memories of your father?

SPEAKER_00 35:57

My dad was very strong and strict about certain things, even though he didn't say a lot and like he would usually try to divert things to mom. But he had definite views, um, and very much so on chiropractic. He was really committed, his work, he was very committed to that, and um always listening and trying to find out new things, which is why I think we went so frequently to um seminars and whatever that he that involved him. So um he, I think he advanced with the age, but never forgot how to adjust. He did a great job adjusting. He really did.

SPEAKER_03 36:46

Sounds like quite a man, quite a chiropractor.

SPEAKER_00 36:48

He was, yeah. I agree completely.

SPEAKER_03 36:52

Well, ladies, Carol and Connie, I want to thank you very much for bringing the memories to our members here and talking about your father again, who practiced chiropractic from the 40s up until into the 80s. Quite a legacy, quite a career, and quite a man. So thank you very much for sharing that time with us.

SPEAKER_01 37:10

Thank you for having us. Thank you very much.