Читать книгу History of Fresno County, Vol. 6 - Paul E. Vandor - Страница 53

A medical man of exceptionally superior training, whose skill and conscientious attention and care to every patient have enabled him to rise rapidly in his profession is Dr. Clarence L. Stammers, doubly interesting to residents of Central California as the son of an esteemed pioneer. His father, a jeweler, was one of the highly-respected business men of Selma, and his mother, who has survived and still resides here, owns the well-known Stammers Block. The Doctor occupies rooms in the Sugar Block, while he lives at the Selma Sanitarium, at 1701 First Street, which is in charge of his wife.

Dr. Stammers was born at Cheyenne, Wyo., on September 29, 1887, the son of the late William Robert Stammers, a native of England who came to Selma and was the pioneer in the jewelry trade. After coming to the United States, he married, as his second wife. Miss Mary Elizabeth Footherape, also a native of England, who still resides in Selma, enjoying the honors due her as a pioneer. Mr. Stammers passed away in January, 1916, at the age of sixty-nine years.

Clarence L. was five years old when he came with his parents to Selma, and here he attended the public schools. In these preliminary studies he laid a broad and liberal foundation; and he was fortunate in deciding early to become a medical man. He first studied ophthalmology, and practiced the same, and later he studied medicine and surgery.

He went to Chicago and entered the Northern Illinois College of Ophthalmology and Otology, and there in 1907 he graduated. Then he took a postgraduate course at the Los Angeles Optical College, from which he graduated in July, 1908. Next he practiced ophthalmology in Selma for about a year. Dr. Stammers then entered the California Eclectic Medical College at Los Angeles where he took the four years' course, graduating in 1914. He had spent three years in the Selma High School and during his college course he returned to Selma and took his senior year, graduating in the class of '13. This union of high school and medical studies, typical of a western American youth, somewhat impaired his health, but he continued for a year to practice ophthalmology at Selma and then he went to San Francisco again to get in close touch with the outer and busier world.

Settling for a while there, he became an interne in the French hospital, and after twenty-six months, he received, on November 30, 1917, a diploma from that institution. It was while he was thus serving and developing as interne that he met the young lady who later became his wife. She was then a student at the Nurses' Training School of the hospital, and she is now proprietress of the Selma Sanitarium, and is widely recognized as well qualified for that important position. In December, 1917, he went to work as an interne in St. Joseph's hospital in San Francisco, and there worked for eight months. At the conclusion, on August 15, 1918, he was regularly licensed as a practicing physician and surgeon, under the requirements of California laws.

The same date, Dr. Stammers was enlisted in the United States War Service, and was sent to Angel Island, in San Francisco Bay, and fifteen days later he was ordered to Camp Greenleaf, Fort Oglethorpe, Ga., where he served in the medical department. He took his examination for first lieutenant in the medical service, and passed all his examinations successfully, the papers were forwarded to Washington; but before his commission could be issued, the armistice was signed. He was therefore honorably discharged as a first-class private at Camp Greenleaf, Ga., on December 23, 1918, and on April 1 he opened his present offices at Selma. On May 1, Mrs. Stammers took over the Selma Sanitarium and this much-needed institution is directed in accordance with such modern ethics and on such a broad basis that every other doctor is entitled to take patients there, and is guaranteed the same impartial and excellent treatment. Dr. Stammers is also one of the three resident examining physicians for Selma Camp No. 268, Woodmen of the World. He is besides, court physician to Court Selma, No. 4215, of the Independent Order of Foresters.

April 24, 1917, Dr. Stammers was married to Miss Juliette Loraine Stegeman of San Francisco, and since then Dr. Stammers and his wife have advanced professionally together.