[Louis Marchiafava] Five, four.
[Eleanor MacDonald] You see my final survey,
I'll show you the book,
is on cancer in
six hospital regions in Texas for 24 years.
We got every case from
every source that we can think of.
That means not only the hospitals,
the clinics and laboratories,
and the dermatologist offices.
I'm the only one that collects skin cancer.
They're very difficult to collect correctly.
Then when we got all through the week,
we looked in the telephone directories and found
any two or more doctors used
the same telephone number, dual practice.
We went to show them what we had,
said we got all of your cases.
In most cases we had to go to a
few more from different sources.
As far as we know,
we got every available resource.
[Louis Marchiafava] This survived even
your successor? (crosstalk)
[Eleanor MacDonald] No. This is my own study
there that I did,
it was published in '77.
[Louis Marchiafava] Okay.
[Eleanor MacDonald] I did this study after
the mayor was there but I was on the grant.
One of the group of lawyers,
I never saw anyone but the one that came to me,
came to me the year before I was
going to step down from my department.
He said, "There aren't
any figures anywhere that we can depend on.
For instance, figures of cancer.
What would it cost to keep your unit
together until you get your books up?''
I said well, on the top of my head about $150,000,
an epidemiologist, a machine,
offer us machine time,
and a secretary and all that.
They raised, they sent me a
$50,000 check every year around February.
But as long as I was there,
I would write them a one paragraph letter,
they would say no (inaudible) we need
$150,000 for Eleanor MacDonald.
You know what you go through to get a grant?
Fifty page document in
multiplicand and then you wait (inaudible) and wait.
I didn't wait, this man came and 10 lawyers
contributed to this so
that they kept me in as long as I was there.
I put the money through
Anderson business office because they got
some interest on it while I was
waiting and it was the official way to do it.
I didn't like to take it right in my own bank account.
I wish I had,
because I saved $4,000 of it to buy
a computer at the end when computers came down.
When I went to get it, it wasn't there.
[Louis Marchiafava] While your department was destroyed,
as you put it, you were still doing work?
[Eleanor MacDonald] Oh, yes. (crosstalk) I still
had that grant there with
numbers and the business office handled it.
They called me and I knew the people and they were
all friendly and we got along fine.
Then I called and I said, well,
the computers have come down and I'm going to
get four or six from about five years ago,
so I'll use the gains of that money and
the (inaudible) said that didn't come through.
I bought the computer and
it didn't come through and finally I called.
This was an office man and they said,
"We don't know who's supposed to sign this release."
I said, ''Well, I had $40,000 and the
other $36,000 have been signed by somebody,
see who signed the other $36,000."
He hemmed and hawed and he said,
"Look" this went on
until finally he called me up privately and said,
" I can't stonewall you any longer,
you're never going to get that money.
It's been stopped at the top."
He said, "I advise (crosstalk)
[Louis Marchiafava] What was the top?
[Eleanor MacDonald] He was the top.
[Louis Marchiafava] He was the top.
[Eleanor MacDonald] The administrator, sure,
$4000 measly dollars.
[Louis Marchiafava] Now which administrator
are we speaking of here?
[Eleanor MacDonald] He said the top, I had (inaudible)
[Louis Marchiafava] Okay.
[Eleanor MacDonald] I didn't get it and it was there for me
to get. There's a lot more.
I don't want to go into more of it
because it's just too distressing.
But of course I
could afford $4,000 but you don't
like to in a circumstance like that.
I never would let myself get that down to
the edge that I'd have to stop my work
on account of somebody's whim
but it's really disappointing.
Anyway, I bought the thing.
Now they've gone down some more.
I have a compact now
that's got everything you can think of on it.
(laughing) You just use the things that plays right.
[Louis Marchiafava] You still work on these things then,
even now?
[Eleanor MacDonald] I took a novel course at the
Rose for five years.
I got about 500 pages written.
But when I was writing it was the three programs,
rather than edit all that stuff,
I'm going start go right through and make it briefer.
[Louis Marchiafava] This is a book?
It deals with your (crosstalk)
[Eleanor MacDonald] Three pioneer cancer programs.
One thing, my family is very important to me,
and my family gets mixed up with this thing.
If I started talking about one,
I could write a whole book,
and the different ones, we've
really have had quite an interesting family.
My sister Mary was
the highest paid
single musician entertainer
in Houston for quite a few years.
(laughing) She was a professor of
neurology working on stroke.
She said, "I'm sick and tired of
this stroke. I'm calling my agent.''
She'd take a playing job at
the Warwick for two or three weeks.
All the nice places.
Had a beautiful singing voice.
She could play anything on the piano.
My mother was a concert pianist.
Are you taking this down?
[Louis Marchiafava] Yeah.
[Eleanor MacDonald] Do you want all this stuff?
[Louis Marchiafava] Well, you we're going
to start to tell me (crosstalk)
[Eleanor MacDonald] I won't go (crosstalk)
[Louis Marchiafava] It's all right.
[Eleanor MacDonald] If I digress,
you'll never get this thing done.
[Louis Marchiafava] Oh, I'm (crosstalk) getting you back.
We had talked about the family music before.
(crosstalk)
[Eleanor MacDonald] It's very important in my life.
[Louis Marchiafava] I understand that
and I don't mind hearing it.
I want to hear it. It makes me understand you better.
[Eleanor MacDonald] Yeah.
[Louis Marchiafava] To understand someone better
allows one to ask questions. (crosstalk)
[Eleanor MacDonald] Worked for Fletcher? at the Anderson?
[Louis Marchiafava] You were going to give me some insights
into some of the people that you knew.
One of them that you were about to talk
about was Gimmett, Doctor (crosstalk)
[Eleanor MacDonald] Grimmett
[Louis Marchiafava] Grimmett.
[Eleanor MacDonald] Let's see, what was his first name?
[Louis Marchiafava] Leonard.
[Eleanor MacDonald] Leonard Grimmett.
You've seen his picture in these books?
[Louis Marchiafava] Yes.
[Eleanor MacDonald] He was an English man
and he was a concert pianist.
Temperamental as all get up,
and a very, very interesting man.
He told wild stories about coming down by
plane in the middle of the Champs de Élysées.
I never knew whether they were true or
not but they were certainly interesting.
He and Fletcher used to come to blows.
Most people did with Fletcher but
no matter that he would lose his temper and
they'd scream at each other
and Leonard was the same type.
They had an awful argument one day.
Then Fletcher had a ranch.
All of us used to go out there very often.
He had horses and all the staff used to
go out there anytime they felt like
on Sunday they were always welcome.
Gilbert always had a fine cookout there,
they had a great meal in the late part of
the day and it was quite an attraction,
it was out in Hampstead or some place.
But he didn't have a telephone
there and Grimmett died one night.
Friday, he had this argument with Fletcher and
then he had gone out to dinner
and he died very suddenly.
I thought well, Fletcher will be horrified.
We all knew about the fight.
It was so noisy, it was out in the yard.
It just didn't mean anything with those two
because they were habitual
and they just adored each
other but they could scream bloody murder.
Anyway. I thought I'd go out that
Sunday and tell him so he
wouldn't get the shock when he came in on Monday.
They're ahead of me with the same thought.
That's how the diverse group was.
All of us thought Gilbert would be distressed.
All of us separately went out to tell
him so he wouldn't be distressed on Monday.
I think that little incident
tells more than almost anything, doesn't it?
We were just a team like you can't believe,
we four, especially.
The pathologist didn't quite
fit in with the rest of the crowd,
but he was all right too. Bill Russell.
[Louis Marchiafava] Bill Russell.
[Eleanor MacDonald] He wasn't amenable to
the rest of the crowd and the kind
of intimacy we all that.
When I'd be having rehearsal for
the Grand Double at this house,
Cliff Howell loved music,
he'd come over and bring his little baby and
nobody had money enough to pay for babysitters.
They were all here at cut rates.
All of them under Clark's influence and inspiration.
They all stayed here when they had their shot like I had
to but I just had
permission to take consultations whenever I wanted.
To keep my income up
I had quite a few regular consultation,
I'd be on call for somebody that needed information.
[Louis Marchiafava] Did you ever have,
(noise) I don't want to use the word confrontation,
an intimate discussion with Dr.
Lemaitre about what was going on. You never did?
[Eleanor MacDonald] He listed himself when he left
there as an epidemiologist.
The day he came my big book came up,
and I sent a little memorandum saying I was
glad that I had something that he could use.
This incidence rate in six hospital regions,
I'll show it to you, to find this write
600 pages of tables.
Anything you want, I had them figured by
different standard rates so that no
matter what standard somebody else used,
you wouldn't have to do any arithmetic.
It's quite a tremendous piece of work.
It's considered a good piece of work.
I sent it up to him and he didn't make any comments.
I thought if I were coming into
a new place and I wanted to know how much cancer there
was in Texas right on your hand by
ethnic groups like San Antonio,
where you have a large number of Hispanics,
a large number of Blacks.
Houston, El Paso's all Hispanics or Anglos.
Here they're all divided up by the finest breakdowns.
It's a treasure trove for anybody,
especially somebody stepping into it.
He never acknowledged it
or never used it as far as I know.
I don't know whether he used it or not,
but he never acknowledged it.
He used to do you like this one when I'd walk by him.
He never saw me for
a number of years so then I went to one of
these big cancer parties one time and I
had been in the newspaper for something shortly before.
He was rammed up, I looked
behind me to see who was behind me.
(laughing) He was coming toward me and I said,
"Oh, I didn't know you know who I was."
"Why of course Eleanor,
I know who you are."
He was just funny, but he never fit in with the crowd.
He never fit in with all the
hard working people that were
there and the sadness among them.
Great sadness because there
was disruption on account of it.
They got a couple of good men in there
to try and straighten it out. One of them was killed.
(noise) They never discovered who did it.
I don't know what his name was, I forget.
That was after I left there.
[Louis Marchiafava] I read about in the paper.
He was brought in with another person
to do what exactly?
[Eleanor MacDonald] I don't know what
he was brought in for.
Nobody told me what he was brought in for,
but it was a general feeling that he was brought in
to reestablish the morale which was so damaged.
[Louis Marchiafava] (noise) From merely reading
the accounts in the newspaper,
it seemed that he was,
not just another, but
another physician working with patients.
[Eleanor MacDonald] Well he was but he was in
an administrative capacity and
he had an office down by
the elevators somewhere where you could visit him.
He was open door for
the people who were suffering and hurting.
They all talked to him, they trusted him.
He did a great deal of good because if
something was going on wrong there
was nobody to talk to.
This man was a superior.
I forget all the details
about him because I never met him.
But I know there was terrible grief among
the people that knew him when he disappeared from there.
[Louis Marchiafava] He was shot in his office.
Never caught the perpetrator. It was a tragedy.
[Eleanor MacDonald] Yeah. They never pursued it, I guess.
I've described the thing we did with Grimmett,
but until shortly before I left
there you could call up any of these people,
no standing on ceremony.
Call up Ed White at the Department of Surgery and
ask him anything you wanted, you'd get it.
He'd stop what he's doing and look
it up if you needed it right away.
McColman had Nick,
they were just a marvelous group of men.
McColman was the head assistant to a
Dr. Hayes Martin at
Memorial so I knew him long before he came here.
I knew Doctor Burtner before I came down here,
he was over at Memorial.
He met Mary and Mary and I had him up
to my sister's apartment
when we had the family musical one time.
When we came down here,
we stayed at the Rice hotel when we got there,
October 1st, 1948.
I'd driven the whole thing.
We'd left late, this is just to describe what we do,
Mary had a girl in her department
that was trying to make
a big hit by helping
Hayes Martin without going through Mary.
Mary didn't care, she knew what she was doing,
but as long as she did her work
Mary wasn't bothered about it much.
But the day before Mary was going to
accompany me down here she said,
"I just discovered something terrible."
She said, "Mrs. Birch is counting
each patient with bilateral lymph nodes as two patients.
Dr. Martin's got this big paper all ready to read in
the new national conference but the numbers are wrong."
Instead of counting individual patients
and saying which had both.
Then if you have one with
bilateral it's counted as two cures.
You see what I mean?
If one person has lymph nodes
with two cancers in the head and
neck or lymph nodes for one,
and you have double lymph nodes for them,
you have to count that person as one cancer,
not by the lymph nodes.
She was due to leave with me the next day.
She said, "I got to correct this.
(noise) I've got 300-400 records."
That's what I did two days before I came to Connecticut.
I went over to the office and we got
all the records out and corrected that study.
We were just dead, we hadn't been to bed for
two nights to get it ready to give
to Hayes Martin so he wouldn't be made an idiot
of it if he got false figures.
Some of them do it without meaning it.
[Louis Marchiafava] What doctor was this again?
[Eleanor MacDonald] Dr. Hayes Martin, head and neck man.
[Louis Marchiafava] Okay.
[Eleanor MacDonald] This was a study of cancers
of the head and neck.
[Louis Marchiafava] How do you spell his first name?
[Eleanor MacDonald] Hayes, H-A-Y-E-S.
[Louis Marchiafava] Martin.
[Eleanor MacDonald] He was a famous head and neck surgeon
at the Memorial.
(noise)
[Louis Marchiafava] What about Dr. Burtner,
you said you knew him?
[Eleanor MacDonald] Yeah. We met him and his wife
was a very interesting, nice woman.
When we came down here,
we stayed at the Rice Hotel
and they had called some after
for where we were going to stay.
They had word at the desk to notify them when we got in.
We got in about noon time one day and
about three o'clock got word that
they wanted us up there for afternoon tea.
They had a really a nice little feast
and a few people for us to meet.
It was an awfully nice introduction.
Before we hadn't met anybody else here,
we knew Clark and we
were some of the people that had come
down to the Memorial for different things,
but our hospital wasn't established yet.
Burtner was the one that was
the acting head of it first.
In the day that Dr. Clark took
the job Dr. Burtner was diagnosed
as fibrosarcoma of the leg through Dr. Clark.
Dr. Clark gave up a big job he had in
Mississippi at a clinic there.
He was a surgeon there, was making big money,
and Burke was there too and Mrs.
Clark as an anesthesiologist.
Burtner was his sponsor and the day he came,
Burtner was diagnosed as
hopeless cancer, metastatic cancer.
[Louis Marchiafava] What kind of man was Burtner?
How would you describe him as a administrator,
for example?
(crosstalk) Well
you wouldn't know (crosstalk)
[Eleanor MacDonald] He was a gynecologist.
Yes I knew a lot about him.
People generally were fond of him.
As administrator he didn't
have too much time to spend on it,
but he did a good general job of it.
He wasn't trying to interfere,
he was just trying to get the medical center organized.
Then he was acting head of the Anderson within
the medical center but he was the head of
the whole medical center for a while.
When the truth is known,
I guess it'll come out that Elliott,
Fred Elliott the dentist,
is really the man that had the dream
of the medical society.
He was the head of it for a long time,
the President after Burtner.
[Louis Marchiafava] Of the medical society?
[Eleanor MacDonald] No. The whole medical (crosstalk).
[Louis Marchiafava] Texas Medical Center?
[Eleanor MacDonald] Medical Center, yeah.
Burtner was also the acting head
of Anderson but he
was also the head of the medical center.
The President or whatever they call it.
[Louis Marchiafava] But the dentist,
now I lost you there. (crosstalk)
[Eleanor MacDonald] The Medical Center has
got a whole separate administration.
[Louis Marchiafava] Yes, I know.
[Eleanor MacDonald] Burtner was the first one.
[Louis Marchiafava] Yes,but you mentioned
the role of the dentist?
Yes. (crosstalk)
[Eleanor MacDonald] I gave his name. What did I say it was?
Fred Elliott.
I was appointed to be
Statistical Committee of
the Chamber of Commerce the week I got here.
Dr. Elliott said that
he wanted to have a dental school in the medical center,
but he wanted to have the backing of all the dentists,
and he didn't know how to get it.
I said, I'll get it for you,
I know how to struggle, David.
He said, "I don't have any money."
I said, except for postage,
I don't think we'll need any money.
We can get volunteers.
Then I got the light from one of
the publicity of medical for foolish issues.
We found that advertisers
realized they're very good volunteers, by and large.
Why the women mostly and they're willing to work.
This is when I got familiar.
I got the names and
addresses of every dentist in the state.
We got Dr. Clark up on these typewriters.
A time of great innovation.
We could put in the name and it was
an original for everybody.
Type the letter and so this woman,
one person, sent a letter to
every dentist in the state of Texas,
with a maturity envelope.
Those that didn't answer within a week,
they got another letter.
They didn't answer then, Dr. Clark
gave us permission to call them up.
Every dentist let them until we got
the last one to say
whether they wanted it or they didn't.
We were able to hand this to Dr. (crosstalk)
[Louis Marchiafava] You mean did they want the center?
[Eleanor MacDonald] Sure they wanted the center.
[Louis Marchiafava] Yeah
[Eleanor MacDonald] The dental schools (crosstalk)
[Louis Marchiafava] I know but that was
the question you were asking.
[Eleanor MacDonald] They were just this is going to be
only medical not a dental.
He thought the dental school should have a place there.
They're a little tired building downtown somewhere.
Elliott was such a sincere,
very quiet man, but very powerful.
As far as I know,
his title he's just passionate with everybody.
Everybody liked him,
yet he was very firm in making decisions. Very quiet.
I was surprised how come he was the leader.
They have a medical center Hall of Fame and they had
about 12 days and I was the only one besides
Mrs. (inaudible) She wasn't
assigned that she gave a building.
As I go to the mash, all the people that work there,
I thought I'll make a lot of
people unhappy, weren't happy.
That makes me happy to be there.
Dr. Clark said it was that maybe.
He always called me by my first name,
she's annoying " Ms. MacDonald,
can you tell me how you got on it,
on the medical center.
I thought that was a very good question.
I said I guess I got fooled (laughing), I
decided I wasn't going to say I thought it must have
been doctor.
His name always slips on my mind while talking.
Dr. Elliott because we were
buddies from then on you can imagine why.
But it wasn't me.
I didn't want me to serve as forever,
just to get a volunteer and watcher.
One volunteer, you can do that,
but you can't do it for 25,000
like Kansas are like they did for the smoking study.
They can't control anyone
but one or two, I don't always use it.
Then using it was really great.
She did all the thing. She was so
painstaking to get it. First one has an answer.
Well, I do call them up again.
Write him a letter, call him up.
She was already the disciplines.
They didn't answer because we only get them on,
but that was some wonderfully powerful thing
for him to have
been when he goes to the state legislature.
He knows every dentist,
the following list or for him,
practically (laughing).
[Louis Marchiafava] That's Incredible.
[Eleanor MacDonald] Yeah.
[Louis Marchiafava] We're almost getting near
the end of the tape.
But before I do, I'd like
to just ask one more question
then say a few other things.
But the last question I have for now,
and I must warn you that I'm going to read
the transcription and if I
find areas that I'd like more (crosstalk)
[Eleanor MacDonald] Sensitive to come out.
[Louis Marchiafava] No, I'm not going to take anything out.
If I find areas that I feel need more explanation,
I'm going to ask you for
another interview if that's all right. Good.
[Eleanor MacDonald] I'd like to tell you some
of the nicer things about some
of these people because you
won't hear it from anybody else,
because they don't know what like Fletcher,
I know so much pleasant and
nice about him and characters.
We know within the family.
He was up in New York one day.
You know the Book of Hope? Have you come across this?
[Louis Marchiafava] No, I haven't.
[Eleanor MacDonald] He had completed
the most amazing things
that I think he was scribing that book to me too.
He Inscribes almost everything with
some nice thing that they consume there, isn't it?
[Louis Marchiafava] Yes. It is.
[Eleanor MacDonald] He was up in New York
with the Elsevier Press,
arranging for publication of this book.
He was delighted by (inaudible) there in
the old hotel that used to be, least right near there.
I forget the name of hotel, but anyway,
it's near Times Square.
I said to Mary, "I've been here
since I came up from Texas.
I've been here since Thursday.
I haven't seen anything but tables.
I haven't seen anything but street where
your apartment is and I want to see Times Square.
Then I said, "This stuff will be here when I come back.
I don't want to do any work."
She said, "Come on, let's
take care of all the time square,"
she said, "You know, we're having
a jam session at the house tonight.
Mom's bringing some of the architects
building churches of payments."
So we don't have a lot of music there."
I urge all of that cabin,
got off and find in Times Square in front of
this building and who was standing there with Dr. Clark.
He and Camilly They were a comedy team together.
They looked alike, only Camilly
is only about half of his height.
They were using for solving together.
They weren't splitting their size
over something Camilly had said,
"Come up, we've got to set a cocktail party,
press got lots of stuff leftover."
I said, "No, I got to go to my house,
why don't you come with us?"
I said, "My sisters were
having a musicals tonight with my family."
So he said, "Okay, we'll come. "
Just to get something.
He went into the hotel, got it, he came back.
My brother served as an engineer and
architect before he went into the priesthood mode.
Also, he played clarinet Jimmy Dorsey
was all around and fell him.
Dr. Clark knew then and Dr. Clark got
the original engineering plans for
the hospital that he was going to build
and carried it with us until our house.
I was there.
We got scared, Camilly
used to preach on Sunday (inaudible).
Occasionally married and I mean,
going into the priesthood was
a tremendous wrench for him.
We loved his work, and all that.
Well, he wasn't in the five years,
only put him in charge of
church construction and preferred well-known.
He had both UC.
He had both his vocation and his liberal vocation.
Clark pulled out his engineering plans.
He said, "These are first plans
for us, would you look at them?"
They all call him padre.
He was the one senior you'd like to
stand on ceremony where people
that weren't Catholics (inaudible).
[Louis Marchiafava] (laughing)
[Eleanor MacDonald] We'll always like to add his hand,
and everything I was doing had some control.
Controls the wrong word because I just
had the end of anything I'm doing.
Clark send him over working plans.
He made lots of suggestions as they went through.
That was one like that.
Every time Clark and James Andersen became dear friends,
he's one of the Anderson brothers,
one of the nephews of MD commonly called.
His name was (laughing)
But James Andersen was a very nice man.
He was Personal Director Anderson,
Clayton Cotton company.
Clark was awfully anxious when he went to New York.
He was like a country boy.
James Andersen said, you know,
he's like a third red horse.
He needed support and comfort.
He'd stopped whatever he's doing and go to
New York with him.
Get up there, the planes,
you sleep about 4:45
and you get up there about 11 o'clock.
Those days. They'd call my sisters,
who would probably be in bed.
[Louis Marchiafava] We are about to finish the tape,
just a minute (background).