239182 Lt.Col. Thomas Barnes Futcher Canadian Expeditionary Forces Orpington Hospital Royal Army Medical Corps Thomas Futcher, M.D., was my grandfather. He was raised in St. Thomas, Ontario, the son of farming family. Went to medical school in Toronto and became one of Sir William Osler's chief medical residents at the newly founded Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, MD, USA. My grandfather, who had a successful private medical practice in Baltimore in 1917, at Dr. Osler's urging, I believe, (or perhaps he was drafted, I don't know. He would have been 46 years old at the time) joined the Canadian Forces in England and became medical director at Orpington Hospital No. 16 from Oct. 1917 through much of 1918. He was a colleague and friend of Thomas McCrae, MD, who preceded him as medical director, and I believe he knew T. McCrae's brother Col. John McCrae, who wrote the poem "In Flanders Fields" and died in the war.
I have some of the letters my grandfather wrote to his wife and his two sons from Orpington during his service there. He talks very little about the war and the patients he treated, who no doubt had many heart-wrenching medical problems. But he talks eloquently about the farm animals and the natural delights he experienced on his Sunday walks through the country roads of Orpington.
If you know more about what it was like to serve as a nurse or physician or to be a patient at Orpington No. 16 during WWI, please contact me. Thanks! I am writing a novel inspired by my grandfather and his experiences during the Great War.
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