Pictures At An Exhibition

*** This story was extracted from one of Daves unpublished books *

Fred J Harrison & Charlie Benack never knew each other but together they played an incredFloridportant role in my life. 

Here's how it all started:

It was one if those especially picturesque, crisp but not especially frigid Christmas days.  The snowflakes seemed to dance as they fluttered and gently painted over the grayness of a very polluted post war Pittsburgh. 

The peaceful and soft muted whiteness spread slowly beyond my vision.

My camera, a Voightlander Vitessa, was hanging loosely from its strap. I lifted it anticipating photographing the special scene of the snow dusted but ice encrusted gazebo in Granddad's vacant lot next to his Ben Avon house.

Photography and capturing the beauty of God's great creations was one of my favorite hobbies.  I developed, printed, enlarged, retouched and framed my own pictures. And loved doing it.

Just as I snapped a photo, a car door slammed and I looked over and noticed my Uncle, Fred J Harrison, from Greenville, Pa., walking into granddads house carrying a large massive camera with a big lens, black bellows and diver colored attached flash.

My gosh!  It was a Graflex, the very type of camera used by the real pros.  I forgot what I was doing and hurriedly followed Uncle Fred onto the back porch, then into granddads big old kitchen and on into the coat room. Uncle Fred was hanging up his very worn, gray fur covered overcoat next to Granddads giant old iron safe.  The faded coat looked like it was from Uncle Fred's roaring twenties Penn State days.

"I had no idea you had a camera like that"! 
Uncle Fred broke into a very rare grin explaining he had loved photography since he was just a boy.  Fred was an outdoorsman, a Penn State man who never missed a football game who especially enjoyed fine scotch, golf and the country club life. 

An engineer who had gone to work for Chicago Bridge and Iron in their early days and accepted stock in lieu of cash for part of his pay.  The stock did exceptionally well, and so did Fred who became a multi millionaire as Chicago Bridge grew and prospered. 

Wealthy yes.  Ostentatious no.  Fred was a man's man who loved deer and elk hunting, golfing and people. He quietly gave a good portion of his wealth, mostly anonymously, to charity.  A humble man who had lost his only son and namesake Freddie Jr, a B17 pilot, in the Pacific near the end of WWII.  I never heard Uncle Fred complain about anything.  I never heard him say a bad word about anyone. He was a remarkable but unnoticed man.

My excitment that day overwhelmed my usually cautious and reserved manners.  Without thinking, my lips uttered  the words "do you want to sell it?" 

"Not really" said Fred.  "It means a lot to me. No I really couldn't sell it"

After our fine family Christmas dinner with Granddad, Fred, Aunt Betty and my parents, I was caught up in the excitement of seeing a real Graflex. I found myself sitting on the piano bench in Granddads living room enthusiastically telling Uncle Fred of my love of cameras, enlargers, filters, developing my own pictures and everything else about my hobby.

Much later that evening I was sitting on the couch in the library when Uncle Fred approached me and said he would "sell me" the Graflex for maybe $100. I didn't really know how much it was worth, but Fred was offering me the bargain of a lifetime, even if I didn't know it at the time. (Later I found out the camera with all the accessories, filters and lenses he gave me later were worth about $1000. ) 

I didn't have a hundred dollars (a large sum in those days) but asked if I could not pay him a little at a time, then he could give me the camera when it was paid.

He looked me straight in the eye, smiled broadly, and then handed me the camera.  "I trust you" he said. 

Excited?  I was more than flabbergasted. 

I was overwhelmed with something called joy.  I couldn't belive it.  I just couldn't belive it.  I now owned the camera of cameras for professional black and white photography. 
That cold wintry Christmas day Uncle Fred's generousity permanently changed my entire life in a happy, wonderful and glorious way. 

A couple years later I took on the job as yearbook staff photographer at my high school in Clairton, Pa.  Aided and coached by the towns professional photographer Charlie Benack, I learned the arts of composure, developing and editing and related skills. 

In fact Charlie gave me one of his older enlargers and some other equipment and patiently taught me darkroom skills and how to make ordinary photos sparkle with life. 

Charlie was a professional photographer who started out in the early 1900's walking from one steel town to another with his equipment on a donkey, making portraits and school class photographs.  A rare and generous man.

Using Uncle Fred's Graflex and Charlie's tireless lessons, within just a few years I would earn hundreds of dollars selling my photos to local newpapers and later even paying for part of my college education. Over the many more years to come those earnings became thousands of dollars.  That Graflex of Uncle Fred's went wherever I went.  Photography had become one of my closest loves and one of my reasons for being.

Many years later, in 1975, sitting in the living room of Uncle Fred's East Side Conneaut Lake cottage near Oakland Beach, an aging and now very fragile 84 year old Uncle Fred was sitting on his couch, carefully balancing his eternal glass of undiluted Scotch.

I found myself thanking him again for giving me the opportunity to own such a fine camera.  Then I somewhat hesitantly asked why he decided to sell it to me after first saying no. 

"It was Christmas" he said.  "It was Christmas".

Sadly just a few months later Uncle Fred was gone forever, but his kindness and willingness to give up something very precious to him to help a kid was something I will never forget.

A few years after I got the Graflex, using money earned with the Graflex and the skills shared with me by Charlie Benack, I bought a Leica 3f red dial with a Summarit f1.2 lens.  Later I added a Leitz 35mm wide angle lens as well as a Novoflex 400mm telephoto. 

I used the 35 mm Leica for color photography, the Graflex for black and white.

Those two cameras captured much more than my life and the life of my children and family. 

In 1957 or 58 one of my photos (of water lillies next to our dock) was even exhibited by Kodak at the Rochester International Exhibition. (See similar photo below).  

Another, a candid personal portrait, sat on the desk of endochronologist Dr Edward H. Rynearson in his office at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota.  

Photos I took of the moons of Jupiter with the Novaflex telephoto helped get me an A in Astronomy at Florida State University in 1957. 

Other photos from those wonderful cameras live forever in old school yearbooks and aging micro filmed newspapers and goodness knows where else. 

My heartfelt thanks to the generous Uncle who gave up something he really cherished and had paid a small fortune for, to help a young man and make all that possible.

And my special thanks to Charlie Benack for taking me under his wing and teaching me professional photography.

These men didn't act for money. They didn't know each other.  They were plain hard working folks acting out of kindness and compassion for another human being.  A young man named Dave. 

There were literally over a dozen men like that who contributed, with absolutely no expectation of money or financial benefit, their time, effort and resources to helping me when I was growing up. 

And this brings me me ask: "Are you reaching to help a young person explore and cherish this amazing wonderful world we live in?"

*** Footnote: Inspired by the Fred's of this world I went on to become a teacher and later a professor. Not long ago I received a message from a recently retired student I had taught in 1969 thanking me for my effort on his behalf and telling me how well he had done in life. What greater reward can anyone have? *** This story was extracted from one of Daves unpublished books ***

Photo: This photo I found on the web is similar to my 1957 water lilly photo displayed by Kodak in 1958. (Unfortunately many of my original photos were lost or became faded).

Uncle Freds house in Greenvile Pa in 2013. It looks exactly like it did when Fred was living there.  He also had residences in Conneaut Lake and Clearwater, Florida.

Tonsils And Wild Bill

Photo 2008: Uncle Bills House In Yuma
I was about 13 or so and found myself not in the smoky city in Pennsylvania where I grew up, but far far away. I had gone out west for the first time in my life.

I saw real cactus and an clear deep blue sky like I never knew existed!  I was in Yuma Arizona, and I had come to get my tonsils out.  Free.  The Dr was my uncle, better known by the local townsfolk as "Wild Bill". 

Wild Bill didn't really look much like a surgeon or a Doctor.  He drove a dusty old Jeep, wore clothes covered with the same desert dust, even had built a log cabin way out in the desert near Ferguson lake. And yes, he did have a house in town.

Day before the surgery Uncle Bill took me to see an autopsy, saying it would toughen me up yes but it would also help teach me compassion and appreciation for the miracle of life.  And at that time, I thought I too wanted to be a Doctor. 

The autopsy was of a young black woman who had died needlessly Bill said. "Cause she didn't want to go to a Dr.", he paused. "Maybe she thought she couldn't afford a Dr".  Then he gave me a long lecture about how many young MD's applying to work in his clinic sometimes cared more about money first and maybe helping folks second.  It really bothered Bill that they had it the wrong way around cause in Bill's words "a doctor shouldn't worry about how much he'd make.  He should worry about his patients and how best to help them".

And he said, "If they ask me about how much they will make before they ask about what medicine they will practice, I won't hire them".  

Alas, tonsil day came.

We went in the back door of the hospital, or maybe his clinic,  I don't remember which. I lay down on the table.

An anesthesiologist was there and the drug of the day was ether.  "Boy, you need to count backwards from a hundred".

Ninety nine, ninety eight, ninety seven, … I didn't get far. I was out like a light.

Photo 2008: Carport Behind House

 

Bill's carport was behind the house.  Somehow he and goodness knows who carried me in from the carport (picture as it looked in 2008).

I woke up laying on a bed in the back bedroom of wild Bill's house with a heck of a sore throat.  When I tried to complain about the pain, Bill's comment always was "A little pain won't hurt you boy. Its time to be tough.  Its time to be a man."

At dinner we'd have something he didn't buy in any grocery store.  Words I would hear would be "Be sure to spit out the buckshot".  

Ducks, geese, deer, fish and more graced Bills table.  And my Aunt Helen was a great cook and incredibly kind and tolerant person.  She met Bill when she was a nurse and still took his calls at home, telling more than one caller how to handle their problem until Bill got home and could call them.

And yes, many of his patients had his home number, which after all was in the phone book.  That's the way Bill wanted it.

A few days after my tonsils came out I found myself hanging on to the jeep door for dear life, bouncing up and down like a tennis ball, On across the desert went Wild Bill clutching the shaking steering wheel with a white knuckled grip.

He somehow pushed that old jeep at what seemed like a hellish speed across the rocks, ditches, ravines and faint trails in the rocks and sand.  There has no road to where we were headed.

We were on our way to a cabin he had built "upriver".  He said the 40 foot logs he built the cabin with had been shipped down from Oregon.  

Later I found myself fishing on incredibly beautiful backwaters of the Colorado and even later jumping in an old wooden barrel the stood outside Bill's cabin that was full of rainwater (for a quick soggy and a bit smelly bath). I note that Bill let that water out and refilled the barrel with well water for his bath.  

From then on I took my bath in those backwaters, rattlers, water moccasins and all.  In those days when you fished upriver, you caught all the bass you could legally carry.

The air was clean, the stars were brilliant and I knew I was in God's country. A few years later I lived in Arizona and attended the University of Arizona in Tucson, where my Uncle John (another MD) lived.

Over the years I went back to see Wild Bill many times.  But not enough times. 

Sometimes we'd make a rough journey with Bill's friends down into Mexico to fish in the Gulf of California where seals and whales frolicked and wildlife in the water was like it was a thousand years before pollution. Sometimes to Bill's log cabin on the backwaters of the Colorado, but on every trip, my ears were graced with Wild Bill's tales of hunting and fishing trips and his scorn for some of the younger generation of MD's that cared far more about money than their practice of medicine and their patients. 

Photo: Wild Bill (Wm A Phillips) Copyright Yuma Sun

In 2009 at age 96, Wild Bill earned the President's Distinguished Service Award from the Arizona Medical Association.  

Bill passed away in December 2009, still living in the same home where I had been as a boy.

They don't make many men today like Wild Bill Phillips.  

Below: Bill's obituary from the Yuma Sun Newspaper:

Yuma icon 'Doc' Phillips diesComments 20

December 21, 2009 7:55 AM

BY PAM M. SMITH, SPECIAL TO YUMA SUN

William A. Phillips, 96, a longtime physician in Yuma, died early Sunday morning at his Yuma home due to congestive heart failure.

Known as "Doc" or "Bill" to friends, Phillips retired nearly two decades ago after practicing medicine for 50 years. After retiring, he spent time traveling and pursuing his love of fishing and hunting.

He was recently presented the President's Distinguished Service Award by the Arizona Medical Association, of which he had been a member for 67 years.

Phillips came to Yuma in 1941, a week before the Pearl Harbor attack. He received a telegram to report to duty as a lieutenant one day, then another to disregard the first order.

His medical career started in his home state of Pennsylvania, where he attended high school, then graduated from the University of Rochester School of Dentistry and Medicine. In a past interview, he told a Yuma Sun reporter he wanted a drier climate so he completed his residency in surgery at St. Mary's Hospital in Tucson.

Phillips accepted the position as director of the Yuma County Health Department after Dr. Roy Knotts left. He opened Yuma Medical Center at 601 S. 5th Ave. in 1944, a building specifically designed for medical practice.

He practiced at the Yuma County Hospital on Avenue B and was the first chief of staff at Parkview Hospital (later Parkview Baptist) now Yuma Regional Medical Center.

When Gen. George Patton had troops training in the desert area north and east of Yuma, five of about 100 soldiers died of heatstroke. Phillips alerted the general, who "disregarded" the information then was informed by Congress to provide more water for the troops.

"About two years ago, I received a call from Bill saying something was wrong with his pacemaker," said Dale Webb, a semi-retired physician who once received diabetes treatment from Phillips. "Frank Martin was his doctor, and we got him into the hospital. Bill had his own ideas about the treatment and thought the new system was too complicated.

"He did a lot of procedures that probably wouldn't pass the muster today, but they worked. He was never sued for malpractice," Webb added.  "We have been friends and hunters over the years."

Another "fan" of Phillips is Rose Vasquez Higuera. 

"I'll never forget him. He treated me for asthma when I was in high school. It made it possible for me to participate in sports at Yuma High School and be in the Junior Athletic Association."

Now retired, surgeon Dirk Frauenfelder said he was given a physical by Phillips when a student at Yuma Union High School.

"I always revered him after going through college, medical school and internship in California. When I came back to Yuma in 1970 to practice at the hospital, he invited me to join him at his cabin up the river to hunt ducks and geese and to bass fish. He had a piano there to play. He made a practice of taking new doctors on these trips. 

"He was an icon because he could do anything - be a surgeon, deliver babies, give shots for people to go to other countries. One of the best!"

Phillips loved the outdoors, said his wife, the former Marinita Brazeel. "He enjoyed fishing while staying at his cabin at Ferguson Lake and reeling in salmon from where our cabin is at Reedsport, Ore."

As to hunting, he always wanted to bag a bighorn sheep and accomplished that desire when he was 94.

"We were married in 1984 after his wife, Helen, had died," said his widow. "She was the first woman to be elected to the Yuma City Council. My husband, Gene, had died in 1982, and the four of us had been friends, camped and traveled together for years.

"Since our marriage, we have traveled a lot. Bill took up video filming and we have memories of travels and family get-togethers.

"Bill was the kind of a man who 'told it like it was' and even after his  retirement, some of his patients would call him for a second opinion. He never disagreed with the person's physician but would give the caller a professional opinion. In his profession he delivered thousands of babies, set broken bones and performed a variety of surgeries."

Bill was preceded in death by his wife, Helen, and daughter, Sandra. He has two sons: Charles, with wife Ann, living in Los Angeles, and Ritchie, with wife Lucy, in Sitka, Alaska. There are three grandchildren and one great-grandchild.

The family is planning a memorial service after the first of the year. Johnson Mortuary is handling arrangements.