“Doc, I’m losing my dad,” I sadly explained to my old friend five years ago, as he was standing outside the door of my parents’ nursing home room.

By that time he was already living in the home with health and memory issues of his own, but I had relied on his compassion for all of my years and that night was to be no exception.

The old doctor who sixty-two years ago had been the attending physician at my birth, put his arm over my shoulders and sadly walked down the hallway with me, sharing my grief during a time of need.

The death of Dr. Roscoe E. Dean, Jr. ended a period in Wessington Springs history that may never be equaled.

“Dr. Roscoe” came to Wessington Springs as a young physician to practice his trade and raise a family with good old Jerauld County values. He succeeded on both fronts and then went far beyond those first two goals. His leadership helped form our Wessington Springs community into the place it is today.

One of the first things “Doc” must have done when he returned to his hometown in 1947 was to slap the behind of a newly-born baby that would eventually become editor of your local newspaper.

Yup, Dr. Roscoe was the attending physician at my birth on a hot August-1947 day in the bedroom of a house owned by my aunt and uncle, Ray and Lillian Whitlock. The new Memorial Hospital on College Avenue was nearly complete by that time, thanks in a large part to the hard work and leadership of Dr. Roscoe. A couple of weeks later, around September 1, 1947, the hospital opened with Dr. Roscoe as the sole healthcare provider.

A sickly kid who didn’t grow an inch or gain a pound during some years, I struggled with a crippling bout of rheumatic fever in the 1950s. Doing schoolwork from home with wonderful teachers like Mrs. Violet Keiser, Mrs. Margaret McEldowney and Mrs. Janice Hasz, I managed to keep up with my classmates during those trying years.

And it was my friend, Dr. Roscoe, that was responsible for my treatment and recovery. While many other kids with that disease did not survive, or suffered long term side effects, I was eventually cleared to play sports, take swimming lessons and put on my first pair of sneakers –a pair of Keds that my grandparents brought me from Kansas when I was around 10. Finally turned loose after years on the couch, I gleefully ran around the outside of the house a dozen times.

The good doctor had told my parents that daily penicillin pills, a once-a-week shot of penicillin the size of a small garbage can, bed rest and good food JUST MIGHT pull the boy through. And he was right. It might have helped that “good boys” at the doctor’s office got a lollipop with a rake or a hoe handle on it.

Six years later the scrawny Wessington Springs kid –the product of Dr. Roscoe’s constant care, caught up with the rest of the kids and earned a place on the high school basketball team.

During the district 21 tournament semi-finals in the Huron Arena I slipped, came down on my right wrist, feeling sudden pain. The next morning I went to see Doc Roscoe for what I feared would be bad news.

Walking into my exam room with an X-ray and a wrist brace, “he made the announcement that I feared. “Well, Craig, you’ve got a cracked bone in your wrist,” he told me.

That night I played the best game of my life as the Spartans beat Woonsocket in the final game of the tournament. My old high school scrapbook –one that my mother kept for me all these years– has a hand written note pasted onto the yellowed pages. “Craig: Congratulations on your outstanding game in the district tournament. Good luck at the region. Your friend, Dr. Roscoe E. Dean”

As a native Jerauld Countian, he knew –or at least learned in a hurry—what the medical needs of our people were at the present, and what we would need in the future. Along with Helmuth Neuharth and a few other Wessington Springs residents who could see past the horizon, he went on to help spearhead the 1960 drive to build Weskota Manor retirement home. Ironically, it was to be the same facility that graciously cared for him in his final years.

Roscoe stood back proudly when the new Weskota Memorial Medical Center grand opening took place in 1979, knowing fully that it was he who was the driving force behind the construction of the new facility that today continues his work.

Our son Matt became ill 27 years ago. A precious three year old, Matt took to vomiting and stomach cramps. “You’d better get him to Huron right away,” Dr. Roscoe said, afraid that his appendix had burst.

We got him to Huron, where we were met by Dr. Paul Hohm and the Huron staff. Following the surgery –they took out the offending appendix—we asked Dr. Hohm for an early dismissal because our high-deductible insurance wasn’t going to pay for much of the hospital stay.

“We usually keep them here another full day or so,” he said.

“Well, Dr. Roscoe is a friend of mine and he lives right down the street from our house.”

“Oh, that’s different,” Dr. Hohm laughed, “Go ahead and take the boy home!”

Roscoe slipped into the house several times over the next couple of days, making sure infection and other complications were not a problem while easing our parental minds. We never saw a bill for the house calls.

Roscoe was a bridge between the buggy-driving physicians of yesterday and today’s technology-driven medicine. He dispensed rural medicine, fatherly advice and horse sense— I call it horse sense, after all he had those beloved buckskin horses. And anyway, he treated a few critters in his day. My spaniel “Max” jumped out of the back of my pickup one day in the 1980s and was unable to put weight on her back left leg. I pulled up to Roscoe as he was getting out of his old Jeep pickup in front of his house. “I think she’s got a broken hip, Doc.”

I can still see him standing there in a pair of white cowboy boots and a matching jacket. He put his skillful hands on that dog –she didn’t seem to mind him touching her even though she was in considerable pain—and he started feeling around on her. “Oh, she’ll be okay,” he said following the impromptu exam. “She’s got some pain but she’ll be better in a few days.” Sure enough, the dog recovered and so did I.

I’m proud of that old country doctor…. I’m proud that he was a friend of your’s and mine. He served his family; he served his community; he served his state; he served his country; and he served his God. What more could you ask?

As Dr. Roscoe got older and frailty continued its advance, I began to wonder what I might write about him and the impact he had on my own life. Well, you just read it.