Dr. Mary

Dr. Mary Merideth

Cassville's "Doctor Mary" By Wayne Rowland

from Barry County Advertiser Feb 11, 1976

Leaving Cassville on Roaring River highway you'll see her attractive office there on the right. Her "shingle" reads, DR. MARY MERIDETH, M.D. Vivacious but gentle, senous but fun-loving, able physician and warm friend, she's ministered to many for 39 years. She's 61, but still one of the prettiest girls in town. Mary Jane Northcutt was born March 1, 1914, in Exeter, delivered by Dr. William Searcy, whose first car was delivered the same day. The proud father of the only child was Walter Northcutt, born at Pierce City, merchant in. Exeter and later in several other towns, with a Baptist background. He was an optimist, easy-going, hard-working. He had dreamed of being a doctor. The new mother was Maude McMahan Northcutt, a Methodist born on a farm near Rocky Comfort where Indian Creek starts from a spring. She was serious and a worker. Mary remembers her parents as being loving and permissive. Dr. Mary, School Girl Mary attended school grades 1 to 3 in Rogers, Ark., was in Cassville for grades 4 to 10, then Seligman her high school junior and senior years. There were 22 graduates, 11 boys and 11 girls. "And I was the fattest girl," Mary remembers, "because I devoted most of my time to eating and reading." Her parents provided her with lots of books and even a set of encyclopedia. She devoured her own and neighbors' books, and, on the sly, read Photoplay, True Stories, and other magazines. Virginia Pearl (Turner) was her best friend in Cassville school days. Mischevious Mary remembers that they "borrowed" corncob pipes from her father's store and smoked a weed people called "life everlasting" on a hillside while watching the Cassville and Exeter train rounding the track. "We even corrupted a good and studious boy, Melville Priest, with our smoking adventure," Mary admits. And the girls read an elightening magazine about white slavery "which bugged our eyes." After sitting through a murder trial at the courthouse, both girls made tentative decisions to become lawyers.

Mary Northcutt 1937

Always Wanted to be a Doctor

"I can't remember, when I didn't want to be a doctor." says Mary today. While her family lived in Seligman she attended the University of Arkansas, graduating at 17, having skipped grade seven earlier with help from teacher Charley Bryant. She had been away from home only three overnights previously and, at first, was "mighty homesick" as a college freshman. After two years of premedical training at the University of Arkansas, in Fayetteville, she studied four years at the University of Arkansas Medical School in Little Rock.She was a graduate medical doctor in 1937, at the age 23, one of only two women in her class and only the twelfth in the school's history. She then served a one-year rotating internship at Woman's Medical College in Philadelphia, a demanding grind.

Dr. Mary's First Office

Times were hard in 1938 and the family had invested much in her education, so Mary plunged immediately into her first medical practice. The place was Eureka Springs, Ark., where her father then operated a grocery store. He made the down payment for equipping her office above a drug store. Two elderly doctors welcomed her to their town. "I was doctor, nurse, receptionist and janitor," says Mary. She made lots of house calls, removed tonsils galore, and being a somewhat nervous and unsure new doctor, "broke lots of thermometers." Her first patient was a little Baker boy, a scarlet fever case. The nearest hospital was the privately owned Barry County Hospital, in Cassville.

Barry County Clinic and Hospital

Mary Moves to Cassville

The Northcutts moved back to Seligman and, in 1938, Mary moved her practice to Cassville, sharing space above the Rowland's Store, on the southwest corner of the square, with Gene Frost's law office, a beauty shop, and Pauline Amos' piano studio. She moved her office to the hospital after marrying Dr. George Newman in February of 1940. He was a fourth generation doctor, 14 years older than mary and previously married.He attended Cassville and Mount Vernon schools, and completed medical training at the University of Minnesota. When his doctor father died in 1933, "Dr. George" returned to Cassville. He and Dr. Carl Poor bought the big William LeCompte home, near the high school, establishing there the private Barry County Hospital and Clinic. For years it was the only medical hospital nearer than Joplin or Springfield. The husband and wife Newman doctors labored together.

Dr. George Newman

Mary Widowed

Dr. George Newman suffered serious radiation burns and several of his fingers had to be amputated. He was seriously ill and the hospital Closed to patients for a few months. He died in November 1949, at age 49, a man greatly respected "in the community, active in Democratic politics and civic affairs. Dr. Mary Newman reopened the hospital two months after her husband's death, and lived at the hospital. In 1951 she welcomed the coming of a group of Seven Day Adventist doctors to Cassville. They bought and expanded the small hospital which Dr. G.A. Purves had established, permitting Dr. Mary Newman to close the Barry County Hospital. She moved her practice to an office on the north side of the Hall Building on the square. There she remained until four years ago when her present offices were built and occupied.

Dr. Mary Newman 1968

Mary Marries Robert Merideth

In 1969 "Dr. Mary," as she is commonly called, marriedRobert Merideth. He was then a music teacher at the high school, younger than Mary, a talented musician with other artistic talents. He designed his wife's present building, which houses her offices and an antique shop. He's living and performing currently in Mobile, Ala., as singer and organist-pianist. Mary's office staff consists of Mrs. Charles Curry, bookkeeper and receptionist; Mrs. Glen Craig, nurse; and Mary Hawk, housekeeper at both the office and Mary's home.

The Daily Schedule

The Doctor's daily routine runs something like this: Sleeps late, drives to St. Vincent's Hospital in Monett to see patients there, then back to Cassville by 1 p.m. to see patients in her office until as late as 7 p.m. She has citizen's band radio in her car "to rescue me if I get stranded on the road." She lingers at the office, collecting her wits, making phone calls, writing letters, reading, completing patients' insurance forms, updating patients histories, and checking the business side of her enterprise. She then may make another round trip to Monett to see patients before going home for dinner at 9:30 or 10 p.m. She relaxes with the Tonight Show and the Tomorrow Show on television, then reads medical jounals, fiction, and newspapers until as late as 3 a.m."I know it's a freaky schedule, but it fits me best," she says. She's one of the three Cassville subscribers to the New York Times. She pedals a three-wheeler in the neighborhood for exercise. Her hobbies are visiting and "frittering."

Travel and Activities

Her travels have taken her to Hawaii, Mexico and Canada, and she's flying to British Cayman Island, south of Cuba, Feb. 20, for a combination short vacation and a medical symposium, accompanied by good friend Mrs. Bill Edmondson. She's a "pretty good" Methodist, an active Democrat, and a member of the federated Silver Leaf Club. She sews a little, paints a little, and watchs some television sports. "Mostly I relax and do little when I can find a free time. With a little more age, I am less active, and it takes me longer to put on my false face," she says impishly. She's not a worrier, but is concerned about sick patients and wonders sometimes how she'll manage "when I'm really old."

Keeping Busy with the Stork

Dr. Mary has delivered almost as many babies as there are now people in Cassville. She delivered one set of triplets to Mr. and Mrs. Ed Vanderpool, and several sets of twins. The triplets are Mrs. Lewis Thompson, Mrs. Howard Tilford, and Mrs. Bob Shuey. Two of them have returned to Dr. Mary to deliver their own babies. "Most but by no means all of my patients are women and children, and increasingly men are becoming less timid about seeing a woman doctor," says Dr. Mary. "I'm not a woman libber in the wilder activist sense, but certainly I support equal rights for women." She says she's neverfelt discriminated against professionally because of her sex. How's her own health? Well, she's had four teeth pulled, one broken arm (fell off the back step at age 7), two eyelid cysts removed, and most of the childhood diseases. "I've enjoyed good health, but then I have a good doctor," she says with a twinkle in her eyes. She did have a two-months case of laryngitis once and was out of her office that long. She couldn't whisper and nobody but the pharmacists, familiar with her prescriptions, could decipher her notes. "I guess I had talked too much," she says. Anyway, my voice has been lower since, like a torch singer, and I can't carry a tune".

Loves Her Home Town Practice

Dr. Mary loves Cassville and the Ozarks, saying "I never wanted to live anywhere else." She hopes she'll never become "an old fuddy duddy doctor" and doesn't think shewill because she keeps up with modern medicine and learns much from young doctors she associates with professionalJy. She reckons her bedside manner is satisfactory... "I just am what I am." She worries when people don't take all of their medicine as prescribed, thinks some of her best treatments have been friendly and sincere counseling, and says the excessive laxative and coffee habits are bad. She believes there's truth in some of the old "folk remedies." She likes her small town practice where she knows her patients and their families intimately.

Mary the Jamboree Dancer

If she had the opportunity and time she'd like to take more college level courses in non-medical, cultural and artistic areas. She has a zest for life, a quick wit, and sparkles like a teenager. Her "dancing act" at Cassville's Ozark Jamboree a dozen or more years ago (backed up by Mary Beck on the guitar and Sue Mitchell with song) won a prize for the Silver Leaf Club's entry in the talent contest. "I took tap-dancing lessons at age 15 to work off my fat," she explains with a chuckle. Dr. Mary is widely respected among her medical colleagues and has held several offices in medical organizations in the region. She's been in "Who's Who of American Women." She's served in many civic roles, including board memberships on the Barry County Tuberculosis Association and Red Cross chapter. Dr. Mary is one of the only two women medical doctors in the seven counties of the Ozark Medical Society in southwest Missouri, the other being Dr. Ione Herrington at Mount Vernon. There are two in Joplin and three in Springfield, not included in the Society's district. That's not all that's worth knowing about Dr. Mary Northcutt Newman Merideth, but it's a reminder to her many friends and neighbors, old and new, that they're fortunate to have in their midst a charming and capable "Mary, Mary, never contrary, we could never let you go!"