Back Roads

This week’s Back Roads is the work of The Land Correspondent Tim King. Photos by Jan King. Is there a doctor in the house?

The practice of medicine in small towns has changed dramatically in the last 60 years. The Christie Home Museum, on Central Avenue in Long Prairie, Minn., holds the remnants of Dr. Robert Christie and his father George’s medical practice — pretty much as it was when Dr. Bob passed on in 1976 at the age of 83.

Dr. Bob begin practicing with his father in 1921 and the two worked together until the senior Christie passed in 1947. Dr. George had started practicing as a surgeon in Long Prairie in 1884.

Although the two men had a downtown medical office, much of their prac tice was conducted from their large two and a half story Victorian home George and his wife had built in 1901. In the early 1960s, my father (who suffered from serious migraine headaches) would go to Dr. Bob’s home to get an injection of morphine to calm the beast in his head. The hypodermic needles Dr. Bob used for his injections are still in a box on a stove in the kitchen.

“The newspaper delivery boy was in charge of sharpening the needles at that time,” Jim Downes, a tour guide and member of the museum’s board of directors, said. The boy was the local dentist’s son and likely learned the unusual skill from his father.

“They didn’t dispose of the needles in those days,” Downes says.

On the other side of the kitchen from the box of needles and other medical paraphernalia, is a table with a pretty red and white checkered table cloth. It’s set for tea. Christie Home during the summer. You can schedule one for a modest fee by calling (320) 4915033. v

“That table was used for surgeries,” our guide says. And eating, apparently. In a waiting room next to the kitchen are photos from Dr. George’s time as a medical student and two black medical bags for making house calls. “There was a liveryman who lived in the basement of the carriage house,” Downes says. “If Dr. George or Dr. Bob had to go on a call they would push an electric buzzer connected to the basement and the liveryman would get the carriage — or later, the car, ready.” There were also maids who kept the large household running. One of them died tragically and her ghost is said to reside in the house. In fact, there are said to be several ghosts in the house including that of Dr. George. There are irregular tours of the

Long Prairie, Minn.