BEST FOOT
Writer / Christy Heitger-Ewing Photographer / Amy Payne
FORWARD D SOUTHSIDE FOOT CLINIC CELEBRATES 50 YEARS
r. Wendy Winckelbach fondly remembers accompanying her father, Dr. J Winckelbach, to the hospital to see patients when she was a little girl. As they went on rounds, Wendy carried her dad’s medical bag and he lovingly referred to her as his “bag lady”. Wendy spent her summers through high school and college working at her father’s practice, and was always struck by how podiatrists are often able to alleviate a patient’s problem or suffering in one office visit. “Being able to make an impact like that for people on a day-to-day basis is a really great way to spend your working life,” she says. Wendy chose to follow in her father’s footsteps, becoming a third-generation practitioner as her grandfather also practiced podiatry. J had originally planned to become an archeologist. He took medical courses and 28 hours of Spanish so he could work in Mexico and Guatemala. Ultimately his cousin, a podiatrist, persuaded him to switch gears. “Instead of working on dead bones I worked on live bones,” says J, who opened the Southside Foot Clinic in 1970. J moved the office in 1973, 1976 and 1981. Several years later a group of physicians asked J if he wanted to join them to build an office on County Line Road, east of Shelby Street. J was there for nearly 15 years before moving to an office west of that location. At that point Wendy joined her father in the practice. The pair were there for five years, and then moved to the company’s current location at County Line Road and Old Meridian Street.
