The Almonte Medical Triumvirate Part 1: Dr. Dunn
Dr. Dunn, Dr. Kelly, and Dr. Metcalfe were three highly respected physicians in Almonte. Local historian John Dunn referred to them as “a medical triumvirate.” Each exemplified the caring and dedication of a small-town doctor throughout their medical careers that spanned many decades.
These doctors collaboratively provided care to both town and country citizens. Travel was by horse and buggy. In winter, they rode over snow-drifted roads in cutters, their doctor’s bags tucked under buffalo robes.
As key figures in the community, this “triumvirate” looked after the health of residents, served in local government, advocated for modern improvements to the town, and worked to improve local schools. “Physician, friend, and counsellor. Each of the medical trio of the first half of the century fitted that description,” writes John Dunn.
Almonte’s three oldest doctors in front of the Rosamond Memorial Hospital, 1953. L-R: Dr. Dunn, Dr. Metcalfe, and Dr. Kelly
Dr. J.F. Dunn
Dr. J.F. Dunn, 1904
John Francis Dunn was born on May 19, 1871 in South Crosby township in Leeds & Grenville. Upon completing a four-year high school course in just one year at the Leeds County Model School in Athens, Ontario, he started work as a teacher in rural schools in the district. He decided to continue his studies and enrolled in medical school at McGill University, but when he contracted tuberculosis – one of the leading causes of death in Canada around the turn of the century – he was advised that a career in medicine might not be possible. However, after taking a position as a ship’s doctor in the North Atlantic, he fully regained his health.
Dr. Dunn as a ship’s doctor after graduation in 1904
In 1910, Dr. Dunn was invited to take over the practice of the late Dr. Lynch in Almonte. Dr. Dunn took up the call and moved into the doctor’s home, settling into life in Almonte and marrying his wife, Mary Moynihan, in 1917.
A rural medicine practice at this time required a generalist with knowledge of pediatrics, obstetrics, gerontology, and emergency medicine. Calls in the night were a frequent occurrence. Home visits were the norm, with doctors travelling often great distances to those who needed their care.
The procedure was simple. Essentially it consisted in fueling up horse and driver and heating bricks in the oven to be placed in the bottom of the cutter. During this stoking-up interval, the phone would frequently ring a second time with the message: “The snow is heavy in the bush and the fences are covered. Tell the doctor to take the shortcut across the fields and through the bush, and we’ll send someone to meet him with the lantern.” Once the horse was harnessed, hitched to the cutter, and brought round to the office door, he would climb in, dressed up in buffalo coat, sheepskin hat, fur-lined gauntlets. He would set his feet on the bricks, pull the buffalo robe over his knees, snap the reins, and away. Sometimes he would be gone two days, and would then return, perishing with cold, so stiff that he would literally fall out of the cutter at the office door, and the horse would walk round to the stable door on his own. His recollection of many such trips was full of admiration because everything at the table was home-grown except the tea, sugar and salt.
– John Dunn
Michael Dunn shares a story about his grandfather, Dr. Dunn.
Enjoy this audio clip with an English transcript.
Dr. Dunn had a lengthy medical career serving the Almonte community and continued to visit patients well into his eighties. As a campaigner for the establishment of a new hospital in Almonte, he became one of the first patients to receive care at the newly opened Almonte General Hospital in May 1961. He passed away on May 28, 1961 at the age of 90.