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Dr. Denmark examinesJohn Morecraft. {Thiswas some time ago, as

John Is now in thesixth grade.)

The pediatriciandoesn't schedule

appointments and

t 91 after6 years o ftreating

children

takes as long asan hour getting to

know a family.

Dr. LeilaDenmark hassome surprzszngideas aboutmotherhood

TheHardest Job on EarthbyLouAnn

Walker

't must be the most unmodemdoctor's office in the UnitedStates, John Eustace Denmark, 90, says of he 125-yearoldfa rmhouse where his wife,the pediatrician Dr . LeilaDenmark , 91, has her practice.The floors are bare dark wood

(rugs would be too germ-ridden). Theequipmentis astonishingly simple: a scalefor Weighing infants, her original 1928stethoscOpe, a few basics . On the desk

and tacked to a screen are three generations of children's photographs.I had come to rural Georgia to write a

story about one of America's oldestpracticing physicians and expected t hearabout the eatly days and how much betterthe practice of medicine used to be. I wasto be constantly surprised.

A handsome woman, her hair gatheredin a bun, Dr . Denmark has a spare frame.Her face only slightly weathered, shelooks many years younger than her age.

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Soon after w e met, she was freel y sharingher opinions on motherhood and childrearing . She i s not the least bi t sentimental .

The harde s t job on earth is being amother, she says . It should e the besteducated job . I never ask any woman tbe a mother if she doesn ' t want to. A lotof women shouldn't be mothers . Everysorry man was made by a woman andevery good man was made by a woman .

Every weekday but Thursday, Dr.Denmark who never leaves her hou sewithout hat and gloves sets off o workin her bareb ones office . By 8 a .m., therooms are filled with mothers their

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babies crying , wriggling, playing. Thereare no scheduled appointments. A signup book rests atop an antique marbletopped table.Some parents drive90 milesor more to her office, which is 8 milesfrom the neare sttown. There's :nonurse ."I don ' t want somebody saying, 'Hurryup," ' Dr. Denmark explains. She takesas

long as an hour getting to know a family.Each day she sees 20 to 30 children.I watch , fascinated, as she

takes a little boy's arm fmnlybut gently. "This is going tohurt," she warns as she starts toinject him.Shenever dissemblesto children. "They're too o n ~est, she says.

Leila Daughtry was graduated from the Medical Collegeof Georgia in 1928 (she was itsthird woman graduate), a time

when only four or five womenwere graduating annually fromthe nation's medical schools.She thenbecame the flrst internat Egleston Hospital for Children, now one of the South'slargest hospitals. She also began charity work at a clinic in aPresbyterian church, andforthenext 56 years she spent everyThur sday there, treating maladies from colds to syphilis,often as not giving patients a

nickel to get home on the streetcar.

In those days, she made housecalls. "Iremember lecturing a mother about sterilizing bottle s," she recalls. "But I didn ' tknow how they were living. There was adirt floor- couldn't believe theykept achild alive in that dirt."

But Dr. Denmark, who consideredherself only a fair student, was alwayslooking for answers in medicine. When ababy found in a trash can didn'trespondto treatment, the young woman internbroke the rules by inventing a specialformula .Thebaby lived. In the early 30s,whooping cough caused seizures andbrainhemorrhagesinchildren.Afterthreebabie s died, Dr. Denmark drew bloodfrom a man with whooping cough whohadbroken threeribs coughing violently,then she injected the serum in her youngpatients-a pioneering technique nolonger used. They got well. Inoculationagainst whooping cough is now routine

protection worldwide."I've been a skeptic about accepting

things," Dr . Denmark explains. "I listencarefully and make up my own mind ."Many of her treatments-for disordersfrom milkintolerance to pol io-have beeninnovative .

Although Dr . Denmark calls many of

her views "old-fashioned," others areremarkably modem . She's delighted that

Wheo the Denmarks built the house next to theold building to e used for Dr.Denmark's office,they built the new house with a floor plan liketheiroldhouseinAtlanta,sotbeywouldn'tbaveto decide where to place the furnit ure, rugs, etc.

antibiotics, babyfood andimmunizationshave made parents' and babies' liveseasier. Her book, very Child ShouldHave a Chance has influenced Georgiamothers for years. In it, she stronglydiscourages "demand feeding,'' now in

vogue . She also vigorously opposes amother's drinking or smoking . She tellsof one very stiff baby: "It was coming offnicotine addiction. I asked the mother,'What about when the boy is 5 and hetake s apuff ' 'I ' llwearitout ,' the motheranswered [meaning she'd spank him].'Well, how can you?' I asked. 'I t's justdoing exactly what you do."'

Some of Dr. Denmark's views arecontroversial: She does not believe moth-

ers should work outside the home . Shedisapproves of day-care centers becau sechildren don't receive enough individualattention-and they snack too much."Without par ents' guidance, children areinsecure, immature robots,'' she says .

"She tell sparents to take charge ," saysMarty Fran chot, a mother of three.

"Everything she tells you to do works,"says Sharon Cannon . "Everything."As children, Leila and her

husband-to-be, John EustaceDenmark (she generally callshim Eusta ce) , lived one farmapart on the rich, black earth ofsouth Georgia. " I remember hisblue velvet s uit ," she says. Leila(pronounced lee-la) was one of12 children; Eustace had sixbrothers and a sister. Their firstschool wa s a one-room log

cabin. "He was always thesmartest one,'' she says. "But Ihelped with his girlfriends."

As a girl, Leila set her sightson several careers. First, shewanted to be a milliner (shemade fancy hats for hermother ), then afashion designer(to this day, she makes her ownclothe s), then a dietitian (shestill love s to cook). In college,when a professor set up a dissecting lab for her , she decided

to be a technician; she alsoworked in a mill town, helping

children . Finally, her talents melded . Hergoal: to be a missionary doctor.

After college, Leila taught school inpoverty-stricken north Georgia. "It waswork ," she says. Eustace also taught,then headed for Java as a State Department vice consul for two years. Returning in 1926, he attended evening lawschool, p assed the bar, then went intobanking.

Eustace and Leila reached an "understanding." She explains wryly: t'I went tomedical school, and no one would haveme. Eustace went around the world, andnobody would have him. And so we oinedup." They were married in a chapel in1928. The day after, Leila got up, flxedbreakfast and started her int ernship. Sincethat time, Mr. Denmark , now a retiredFederal Reserve B ankvice-president, hashandled the busine ss end of her practice.

"We lived in the be st era on earth,'' Dr .

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Denmark says in her soft drawl. "Peoplee ~ j o y e d t h i n g s .For 56 years, the Denmarks have sat in the S liJJ.e pew in theDruidiiills BaptistChurch .Botb are avidhikers, and she especially loves campingina ent. "I 'm as limber as a 16-year-old,"sqe says, touchlng her toes . Her healthhabits are simple: She eats heartily but

neversQacks. "I 'm only addicted to primerib," she says, laughing. She stoppedeating desserts a quarter century ago .

Over the years, the Denmarks havemoved farther and farther north of Atlanta. Civilization kept shooting up aroundthem. In 1949, partly because a neighborcomplained of babies crying, we built anoffice across the carport," Dr . Denmarkrecalls. "Adoctorfriendsa id, 'Whoitithenation is going to be driving out there?'By 9:30 the day opened, the parking lot .was full up. I was in heaven."

In he early 1970s, theDenmarks agreedto sell that house on a contract: They'dremain 14 years, then a developer wouldtake possession. "We thought we'd bedead and gone when the time came,".Eustace Denmark says. They grew tolove their home, and suddenly the contract ' s end oomed . Their solution? Th e ybuilt a virtual duplicate on 81 acres ()ffarmland purchased years before. "Old as .we are, you don't want to try and arrangedifferently," Dr. Denmark says of theirspacious home . "We didn't want to haveto worry about w here pictures and rugsgo ."

She glances up at a painting of herselftending a child, made from a newspaperphotograph. "I don ' t lilce my looks as anold person," she says. In the den is aportrait o f a y o u ~ g e rDr. Denmark, ag ~ o w i n gbrunette, holding her daughter,Mary (who is now married with twogrownsons) .WhenMazywasachild,Dr.Denmark recalls, her office was in thejrbreakfast room. A woman cared for Maryall day, with her mother keeping closewatch. "I learned more from my ownbaby than I did in medical school," thepediatrician says .

On her day off, Dr. Denmark ' s phonerings often. She jumps up to answer."Give her a tablespoon of milk of magnesia," she says. "There's something in herstomach we have to get out. Don't giveher ginger ale." Dr . Denmark is quiet amoment. " Listen to what I 'm saying."She repeats her instructions. "If she gets

a fever, you call me back." .The phone rings again. "How is h

baby today?" Dr. Denmark asks . W o n ~derl"ul," she .says, hearing good news . .

Dr. Denmark has no thought of retiri n g ~ p e r h a p s.because she doesn't callwhat she does "work ." "Work is something you don't want to do, .. she says .

"Something you a n t t o ~ t h a t 'splay."She adds, "When you see my name in heobittiary, that's when you'll know I'veretired." ,

One morning as I watched her watkbriskly through the back door of her f flee at 8 a.m., it was clear that Dr. Denmark was excited about starting the newday. She worked until sundown, not stopping for lunch, brimming with vigor,

optimism and a sense-of mission ."There are two classes ofpeople being

thrown to the wolves," she told me. "Our .little people and our old people. If can .just put one more child on the right traek; this life is worthwhile."

I had gone to Georgia to write about anunusual o ~ nat the end of her life, but

what I found was a woman living anastonishingly richlife. She wasn't justhelping you.ng people, she Was teachingall p e o p l ~ y o u n g middle-aged andold- to live their li ves as fully as theycan:

[This art icle is reprinted, by permission;fromParademagaz.ine , Octobe r 15, 1989, pp .16-17.]

Dr Denmark s Pronouncements Ot Child Rearing

Women havemade and trained

everyman

oil earthexcept

Adam .As

womenthink and

cooduct tbelr lives, so 3oes. he country. You see that little squirrel with the babies out In that tree? She bas never read a book, yet sbeknows just what to dofortbem. She feeds them, keeps them clean, warm or cool andawayfrompeople. Maybe it is .not quite that simple, but it is not half as c o m p l i c a t ~ das the books,ne.ighbors, grandparents and doctors would make you think. I don't know what old age is except when I look in the mirror. And that messes it up We're supposed to betbe wisest of creatures, yet we see a pregnant woman drinking alcoholicbeverages, smoking and taking drugs she would never think or giving her .child. Then sheex.pects her baby to come into the world happy, docile .and cqddly,as a ldtten.

A woman should never bring a child into this w:orldand neglect tbatchild for somebody else'schild or busband. When ac .hlld drools, his nose is stopped up; Put a dothe5pln on your nose and see if you don'tdrool .

' Once a man came to me to ask me to "$lralgbteo out" his three wayward children . Themother's teeth were so brown from tobaceo stains that , as she smiled, her mouth looked .Iike

a dark hole. The fatller looked even worse. I thoughtto myself, I f had a stallion that lookedlike that mao ao a mare tbat looked lik e thaf mother, . I would not e c ta Kentuckyracehorse out of their colt." There's nobody can build a Smith Xcept a Smith. A .child bas to have a model.

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