PEEK INTO PANOLA
By Vina Lee
Woodroe W. Wylie of Pine Hill, Texas was one of the Charter Members of The Rusk County Poetry Society. He lived and worked in the Rusk and Panola County areas owning several businesses and rearing a family.
During those years before the 1980's, he was friends with Doctor Will J. Turner who had his office in Longbranch. Doctor Turner was a country doctor making house calls and practicing medicine mostly always away from the hospitals. There were no X-ray machines or modern drugs and many patience survived because of the knowledge and skill of Dr. Turner. There was usually only a dim lamp light to examine the patient, make a diagnosis and count out the medicine. The Sulphur drug and Penicillin brought wonders to the medical world because it often took months to cure pneumonia and even the flu. Now, it is only a few days.
In Doc Turner's day, there were many hardships to practicing medicine or even operating a business. There were no cars, trucks nor buses and no telephones. Much of the time roads were impassable for wagons and messages were delivered by buggy or a runner on foot.
One of the stories Wylie liked to tell was about Doc Turner's favorite grey horse, Sam. Doc loved Sam and the faithful horse carried him to the neighboring communities of Longbranch, Dotson, Jumbo, Clayton, and Fairplay. He traveled long hours on the horse both night and day. In the extremely bad weather there were times when the cold icy rains froze his feet to the saddle stirrups. "Our modern doctors cannot possibly conceive of the hardships and privations the doctors went through a few decades ago. Many times these doctors of olden times made these unpleasant trips without pay." Dr. Turner mourned Sam when he died, and considered Sam more deserving than an ordinary horse. He remarked that, "the scavengers would not devour him. He had a grave dug and a monument placed at Sam's grave as a tribute to a faithful horse that had been so good to a doctor and his patients."*
Wylie said that Doctor Turner reared two boys, Pete and Pat who had become orphaned and the men grew up to be assets to the community. He was one of the best business men in Panola County, ran a dry goods store in Longbranch, owned hundreds of acres of land, built barns, rent houses and raised cotton, corn, ribbon cane, syrup and even mules and cattle.
* (From A Tribute to Doctor Will J. Turner by Woodroe Wylie.)
Footnote: ( Dr. W. J. Turner was the son of Jesse Hinton Turner (6/28/1858-11/2/1936) and Clara Nevil (3/16/1866-4/1/1946). He is buried in the Shiloh Cemetery in Rusk Co. next to Jesse and Clara as well as his brother, George Turner. He is the brother of Annie B. Turner who was married to Richard Lee Griffin.)