James Patterson, Doctor & Veteran

Photo Credit: Montana Standard

Oral History Transcript of James Patterson

Interviewers: Aubrey Jaap & Clark Grant
Interview Date: April 13th, 2018
Location: Butte-Silver Bow Public Archives
Transcribed: June 2020 Adrian Kien

Clark Grant: Basically, we're doing 100 oral histories of people in Butte. It's part of a project that we got a Grant from the federal government, from the National Endowment for the Humanities. So it's a partnership between the radio station that I work at and the Archives to document the stories of notable people in Butte.

James Patterson: I'm honored. I'm not a native Butte, but I've been here long enough to be.

Grant: You're from Oklahoma, right?

Patterson: Originally, yes.

Grant: I grew up in Oklahoma and Arkansas.

Patterson: What part?

Grant: Tulsa.

Patterson: Beautiful city.

Grant: So, I'm not a Butte native either.

Aubrey Jaap: Jim, if I could just get you to sign an interview agreement and it's saying we're allowed to use this interview here at the archives and possibly on the radio station. Sign right there. And if there's something you don't want made public at the end, just let us know when we can mark it and restrict that.

Patterson: Well, my handwriting is always bad. My only "D" was in penmanship and it's gotten worse.

Grant: Being a doctor.

Patterson: Well, yes. But now I notice I had to write four letters and I had to move my arm because I'm a finger writer and not a hand. This is the way you're supposed to do it now.

Jaap: We're ready to go. OK, we're here with James Patterson. So, Dr. Patterson, I want you to talk a little bit about growing up. I know you grew up in Oklahoma. But if you'd just like to talk a little bit about growing up, and I know you didn't come to Butte until after the Korean War. Correct?

Patterson: Yes.

Jaap: So I guess I'd just like you to talk a little bit about your life before you came to Butte and touch a little bit about Japan and Korea.

Patterson: I was born in Woodville, Oklahoma, but we weren't there very long. We moved to a town called Elk City, and then my dad moved, I think in '27, '28, to Duncan and he built a hospital there. And that's where I grew up with the high school there and I graduated in the class of '41. Then went to Hobart College which is a liberal arts school, up in the Finger Lakes of New York, are you familiar with it?

Jaap: I'm not familiar with it, no.

Patterson: And I was there. Well, while I was there, of course, World War II started. And I went there two years because the Navy took it over. It's on Lake Seneca which is a huge lake, and they had it as a training station, I think. And then I went to University of Oklahoma for two semesters. And during the war, the army...well, I guess the Defense Department, they needed doctors so badly that we didn't have to have a BS degree to get in. So I don't have a B.S. degree. I only have three years. But they needed doctors so badly, so I went in and entered medical school in '43, I guess. And most of us in the med school were in the military. The army were PFC's and the Navy, I don't know what their rank was. They were called ASPT, I think it was. They wore the usual Navy bell bottom type of things. And then the war ended. And they stopped the program because if you were there and you graduated, of course, you had to pay them back. I took my internship in San Diego. Am I getting ahead of myself?

Jaap: No. You're doing just great.

Patterson: Well, I interned in San Diego and that's where I met my wife. She was a medical social worker there. She was kind of cute. But, medical internships and residencies always start the first of July. I finally got around to asking her for a date on my birthday in April. And things went well and we got engaged in July and married in August. And then I applied for a residency in medicine at San Diego County Hospital. But I wanted it a year later, because I wanted to do some GP with my dad. So I went back to Oklahoma and started working with him. My sister's husband was in the practice. There was never a doctor there too. And during that time, the army suddenly realized they were short of doctors. So, I remember his name, Colonel Roberts came to Oklahoma City recruiting for doctors. And my brother-in-law was on his way to Australia when the war broke out. He was in the reserves. He was a medical officer and they detoured him to New Guinea. And he remained in the Pacific until the war was over. He ended up as a full colonel. I think he was a Philippines attack surgeon at the time. He knew Colonel Robinson. So I went to Oklahoma City and talked to Robinson. I felt obligated. Meryl and I both did. Because I got my education through them, so I signed up.

I wanted to Fort Sill, which is only 30 miles away. And the way they treated me when I went to get my physical, I thought, "Hell, I'm not going to go into this." I got my physical. This was probably in March. February, March. I didn't hear anything. And, finally, in May, I guess, I called them. I said, "You know, I haven't heard a thing. I have a residency coming up in the first of July. I have to let them know." They said, "Oh, you'll hear from us." Well, again. Nothing. So I called up later in May or maybe first of June, I can't remember. "I have my residency here. Make a decision now or forget it." They called the next day and said, "Can you be in Washington tomorrow night with your wife?" Typical military. We arranged, some friends of ours worked for Halliburton. Duncan was the headquarters of Halliburton at that time. And we arrived there the next night. And they met us at the plane said, "We're awfully glad you're here. The ceremony's been postponed. We're going to be sworn in with the secretary of defense. But something has come up. You'll be our guest at Walter Reed Hospital." Well, I was there 10 days. What had happened, they wanted to combined services, and they wanted someone from the Air Force and the Navy at the same time. So that was a delay.

Meantime, we got to know the Pentagon pretty well. Went all around it. Anyway, when we went to interview, we found out that the reason they were having trouble getting army doctors was you had to go to Japan where they needed them. MacArthur wouldn't let you go with your family. You had to be there a year before the family can join you. And once you do, then you have to remain two years. Well, our service was only to be two years, so that was a hang up.

But the surgeon general's office...if it comes up or try to bring this up to Secretary Johnson. So anyway, we went there and now Meryl was the only wife there. And he was interviewing us and said, "Where will you be going?" I said, "Japan." And he said, "Oh, Mrs. Patterson, you'll be going with him." And she said, "Oh, I'm afraid not. I have to wait a year." And he said, "Well, we'll see about that?" He turned to the press. I remember seeing Pathe News. They're not available now, are they? I remember seeing Pathe News and there were others there. He said, "That's off the record." But they said, "Not if we print it." And so when we got back to the Pentagon, or the Surgeon General's office, they were all jumping up and down with glee because they knew that it would go through. And it did. But Meryl didn't, we didn't have coordinated travel. She didn't come for three months.

All right. And then, as I've told you people. Our first anniversary, I was in Japan. She was in the States. Our second, I was in Korea; she was in Japan. So Korea broke out while I was there. And I went with the first medical unit into Korea. In Japan, I worked at a dispensary downtown. But we lived in a housing area about, oh, twelve, fifteen miles north of Tokyo. And it was near Camp Drake, which was the headquarters for 1st Cav. Incidentally, my father was a battalion surgeon with 1st Cav in World War Two. But. I was at this dispensary downtown when I got orders to report that afternoon with fatigues and my dog tags. Well, my dog tags were home. And I didn't have any fatigues. So Meryl had to come up and bring my dog tags to me. And we had to go to the commissary to get fatigues. But on her way to pick me up the car conked out and it was on the Boschi Bridge, which is a curved bridge. And that's where all directions in Japan are measured from that bridge. But anyway, she couldn't get to me. But the Japanese were so, so friendly and nice. There was on almost any corner of downtown Tokyo, there was someone directing traffic. Although there wasn't much. But he saw our distress and called an MP to come and pick me up and take me to the hospital.

We really, really enjoyed Japan because everybody was very friendly. A lot of the kids spoke English. We never had trouble in the hinterland. Oh. Anyway, I got on the train in Tokyo and went to Fukuoka, where we boarded a freighter to Pusan and on the freighter with us was the military police, our hospital unit and the CIC which was counterintelligence. And we landed and then we took over a school in downtown Pusan and converted into a hospital. Part of our unit went to a MASH unit.

There were six of us in the surgery department. Our first casualties came in boxcars and cattle cars. The front was about one hundred and fifty miles north of us. They had gone down that far. And then when they ended up in Pusan Perimeter, which was about 28 miles from Pusan all around us. But prisoners would arrive about 11:00 or 12 o'clock, usually. We would triage them, do surgery. We'd finish probably by around one, two o'clock in the afternoon. And then the next batch would come in. We had no ambulances. I really can't remember how they got from the freight yards to us.

Well, obviously, they got there some way. But I would say after about two weeks or three weeks or so, we got more medical officers and we divided ourselves into two teams. So we worked 12 hours. So every other night we would be off. The hardest I've ever worked. We set up two operating tables when we had the two teams. We set up two operating tables for head, belly or chest wounds. And then we set up sawhorses and we set three gurneys on them. We set up those gurneys to do the extremity wounds. All we did with those wounds was just to debride them and treat with sulfa and pack them. They were all contaminated. We were to be a 400 bed hospital, but it ended up being 700 man, because we couldn't ship them. We had to wait for a freighter to come. Then we would load up 75 or 100 of them taken to Fukuoka.

Jaap: So how many doctors were there, 700 bed hospital. How many?

Patterson: Well, there were twelve of us on the surgical team. I don't know if there were that many in the medical end of it. Medical was a problem, of course, because we had an outbreak of smallpox while we were there. We all had to be revaccinated and three of them, of our troops got smallpox because they doctored the records. They weren't vaccinated, but they said . . . anyway, they died. And we saw autopsies on all three of them. There was also an outbreak of Japanese encephalitis while we were there too. I think we had two or three hundred patients and there was about a 10 percent mortality with that. I don't know if there was any way to treat it.

I forgot to mention when I went to med school. Penicillin had just come out. We used it. We measured it in units because it was injectable. There was no oral penicillin. We used sulfa powder in the wounds. As well as using penicillin.

The Inchon invasion came and, of course, we were relieved. And the commander of the troops in Pusan was a hunter. We were on the Nakdong Delta, which is probably, I would say, two or three miles across with all the swamp land. Just black with ducks and geese, all sorts of things. So he got shotguns for us. A lot of our guys were hunters, so we went out and got pulled around in the delta. I got a goose. I shot at the front one, hit the one behind. They were Canada geese. I think I told you, we had potbelly stoves to heat our rooms. There were six of us in each school room. And we cooked our goose on that because we had B rations. B rations were for people that weren't on the front. C rations for the front. C rations are better than B. Because B comes in great big tin cans. They weren't that good. So that's why we cooked our goose there. I remember one breakfast we had pancakes. I thought, "Oh this is going to be wonderful." And they had tropical packed butter and mint jelly for syrup. So it wasn't very good.

Anyway, I had signed up. They extended most everyone for another year, but because when I went in the first one, they honored mine and I got out at the end of, I'd say, about twenty-six months. So Meryl and I came back on the troop ship to the States. Well, when I went back . . . Four of us got hepatitis. We had honey buckets. And I was in surgery. We. I just got "God, I am so damn tired." I could hardly stand up and everything. Everybody said, "Well, we're all that way." Instead of sleeping in the room with everyone else, there was an empty bed in the surgical wing. So I went there, and when I urinated, I saw what looked like coffee. So we knew what it was. As I say, there were four of us.

Oh, I didn't mention that [inaudible] bay became a POW hospital. And we took care of the prisoners of war and a lot of them had tetanus because they had no vaccine. You'd walk down the hall and they'd stiffen up. OK. Went back to Japan. I was there a month or two recovering and then I was reassigned to a station hospital near Tokyo, near where we lived, actually. And then came back to the States. Landed in Seattle. And then I went to San Diego where Meryl lived. I had applied for a residency at a V.A. hospital in Los Angeles. I got my residency there. I was there for a little over three years. And then I was interested in rheumatology, which was a brand new field then.

At the time, during World War II, there was a big, huge outbreak of rheumatic fever because of the strep infections. And penicillin wasn't available enough at that time to prevent it. From that, several of the officers, that were medical officers there, got interested in arthritis and rheumatology, and they went to various medical schools and established departments. And there was one, Howard Weinberger at the V.A. in Los Angeles. He was a part of that group. And two of us got interested in rheumatology. And so I went to San Diego and started my practice in rheumatology. But there wasn't a heck of a lot we could do for rheumatoid or any of them. Peri-arthritis or lupus or any of that. There's about six in that category. And I thought, "Gee, I'm going to do more general medicine."

So the AMA had ads in their journal. And there was an ad, there was an opening here in Butte. I applied. Came up for an interview and came here in August. There was also an offer from Rapid City which had a big clinic. I went there first and it was 107 degrees. Then I flew into Butte and it was green and nice weather. Finlen hotel was hopping. And there was a national singer, a woman singer in the small room there. I liked the clinic. I got back home when they said they'd take me, so I agreed to come.

Jaap: Was this at the Murray clinic?

Patterson: The Murray clinic, yeah. It's now the Northwestern Energy Building, our clinic was the top floor there.

Grant: What year would that have been?

Patterson: '57. Meryl and the family didn't come until June because my daughter had strabismus in her eye, crossed eyes, and was undergoing surgery. And they had to do it twice. They overcorrected the first time and then the second time it wasn't...anyway they came up later. So I started my practice in Butte.

Jaap: What was Butte like when you came in 57?

Patterson: Jumping. Hopping really. That's why I came. It was really vital. And then the strike of '58, and everything went down after that. People started leaving. I think they had just built the concentrator. And then they closed that. That never opened for a while because of the strike.

Jaap: What did you think after first moving here and loving it and it being so vibrant? And then within, you know, a year, the strike.

Patterson: Well, by that time we had pretty well settled. And I enjoyed the clinic. I enjoyed what I was doing. When we came here, there were no ambulances, by the way. One of the taxi companies had one, but it was in a garage. And it was a big problem to get it out to use it. And it was a regular ambulance like you'd see, like a hearse. So it wasn't used much. I remember I made house calls when I was here for a while.

But, no, we adopted to Butte. Meryl said, "I will not move anywhere where it gets hot." She thought that was three miles of Pacific Ocean because it doesn't. It's pleasant anywhere near where we are. She said, "If I'm going to Montana, I'm going to ski." She went to Cal in Berkeley and learned to ski there. They had a lodge up in the Sierras. So she skied. The kids did. And I did. And that was great.

Jaap: Where did you go skiing at?

Patterson: Well great. She and Mary Jane Davis, she was Jack Davis' wife who was an orthopedist here at the time, they and [inaudible] who was a dentist, and two or three others established a ski patrol there because we had the rope tow and the high school kids would jump on and the younger kids would be thrown off. So we've got to have some order here. So they established that. Then we also went to Bridger. Bridger was open. The good place to ski. Most of the kids, the high schools at that time had ski teams. Both of our kids were on the ski team. We would go to Bridger. We would go to a place outside of Dillon. I can't remember the name of it now. It's a regular ski hill now. We went there. We would stay in Jackson and drive over because it's closer to Jackson than it is to Dillon.

So then Big Sky opened. And we went there for a year. The Meadow Village over there for homes and condos. There were no condos in those days, but the Pore Firm built and bought a house there. So we went there as guests of Bob and Pauline Pore. And that's why we went there. The first year we were there, we ate in the cafeteria. And they didn't have the windows. All they had were plastic over the windows.

We went to Sun Valley. We went to Sun Valley about 12 or 13 times. A group from Butte would go and there would be 60 or 70 of us. Leave on a Thursday and come back on a Sunday. As I recall, weekend passes were $18 and we took over what was called the skiers' chalet. It was four dollars a night with bunk beds. And I think it took about 40 of us. There were women's bathrooms and men's bathrooms, showers. Everyone was from Butte. So we had a great time.

And then Discovery opened. We went there all the time, after that. And summertime, I did a lot of hiking around here. Then we bought our place in Flathead in '65 and after that all of our summers were spent up at Flathead.

Jaap: So, Jim, I've heard Ellen say this. And I found an article and it sounds like you treated your nurses at the Murray clinic with great respect. And Ellen has mentioned that you were just so appreciative of your nurses and how well you treated them.

Patterson: Yes. Well, I realized over the years that, maybe even more after I finished it. We would see the patients and diagnose them and issue the treatment schedule. This is particularly at the hospital. And then they would carry them out. And they really gave the patient care. I felt that we really were obligated at what they were doing. And that's when I set up the scholarship with the nursing school at Tech. I visited that. The program is excellent. I understand that every graduate has passed their exams. You've had a hundred percent success ratio. And then, well, my wife and I set up an IRA, a charitable trust for [inaudible] and that's where they came from. So. I think like seven nurses for that. I think only two are living now. And one skilled nurse, she worked for Highland Hospice. Julia Bushmaker. And then Roberta Daff is still here.

One of them, Roberta and the other one, helped me set up a coronary care unit. One of the first ones in Montana. During that time, Salt Lake City, the University of Utah Medical Center, had people come. Two of us from Montana, from Idaho and Nevada and Utah, to establish what we could do to establish a training program. Because CPR was just starting then. So we got trained in CPR. Then we would come back and do that. And Roberta Daff took that over at St. James. And the other nurse that was in there became, I think, the first P.A. in Montana, certainly in western Montana. And set her practice up in Seeley Lake and was well known there. She took care of everything.

I was going to say something about here in Butte. Oh, well, there were three hospitals when I came. The county hospital, which is where the NCAT is now. That was the old county hospital. And then there was St. James, which is vacant now. And the community hospital, which is now St. James. We made rounds there twice a day and then, of course, we were on call for the emergency room. I think I told you, at that time nurses could not start I.V.'s. You'd get a call in the middle of the night. "Dr. Patterson, Mrs. Smith's I.V. is infiltrated." And I'd have to go in. So you see how far they've come.

Jaap: So what were the nurses primary duties then?

Patterson: Real nursing care. Give me medication and clean up. Although, they had LPN's as well. I don't know if they have those now. I think they have a different title for it. But, yes, no, they couldn't do those other things. Of course, there is the therapist, occupational, physical, speech, and the social workers, they're all part of the team. Then I retired in '84.

Jaap: What year did the clinic close?

Patterson: I think it was around '74. When we joined the clinic, they were building ample funds to build a new building. And I know I took, they extracted money from me. I mean, I can't remember how much it was. It was billed up to five thousand dollars. Well, my salary was eight hundred, when I came here. The seniors were making about twenty eight thousand, which is poverty now, I think. Anyway, oh boy when I reach that, I'll be in hog heaven.

Jaap: How times have changed.

Patterson: Oh, Meryl was . . . We worked six and a half days a week. No afternoons off. And worked until Saturday noon. And Meryl was in an accident because I hadn't gotten to take the car in to get the tires repaired. So I raised Kane. I said, "We've got to start taking afternoons off once a week." We did after that. And I don't know, I suppose others were doing it by that time, too. But anyway, I started pushing at getting a new hospital, a new building, and we contacted a company in the Midwest that built office buildings. Had them build where it is now. It's the westside professional building now. But that was the Murray clinic.

Jaap: OK. I wasn't aware of that.

Patterson: So that's how that happened.

Jaap: So when you moved here, you had your kids. How many kids did you have?

Patterson: Two.

Jaap: Two kids?

Patterson: Yeah. Leslie. I don't know if Jimmy was...Leslie was going into the first grade. When they arrived here and she went to school, we rented a house on Alabama street, and it was only two blocks from the school. But it was below zero. We got her dressed and sent her to school. She came back and said, "It isn't open." That was her entry to grade school. That was the old McKinley School. Jimmy was in the first class to go to West Elementary School, but he went in there. He was only there one year, because then he went to junior high.

Jaap: So you lived on Alabama Street and then did you move on to...

Patterson: Oh, we bought our house in 1960, where we live now on Steele Street. Bought it for fifteen thousand. We assumed the loan because banks would not loan us money. They wouldn't loan the money. The banks were all subsidiaries of St. Paul and Minneapolis. They would not loan money on houses in Butte.

Jaap: And why is that?

Patterson: The economy was poor. And so I assumed the loan on the house at the time. That's how we ended up there.

Jaap: Ellen and I were there, was it a couple weeks ago, and you have a beautiful home.

Patterson: Well, we like it. We enjoy it.

Jaap: It's very evident your time in Japan, in your home.

Patterson: Yeah, well, Meryl was interested in Oriental things. And Meryl was interested in interior design. You know, as our yard is sort of a modified Japanese garden. But, yeah, we love it here.

Jaap: Did Meryl work when you guys moved here?

Patterson: No, she didn't. She volunteered at a lot of things. She was a membership chairman of the community concert for fifteen, sixteen years. She was on the board of the St. James Hospital for a while. She was also on the original board for the museum on Broadway.

Jaap: Oh, the Chateau?

Patterson: Yeah, she was on the original board of that when it opened. And I can't remember other things she did. Our kids both graduated here.

Jaap: And what do your kids do? Did they follow into the medical profession as well?

Patterson: Well, Jimmy went into biology and Leslie became a med-tech, and interned here, by the way. Jack Newman, a pathologist at the hospital, a wonderful guy, had an internship program for med-techs. And so she married a classmate at MSU. He was from Lewistown. Fact is, his grandfather homesteaded the area. They have a ranch there. She practiced there for a while. Then they divorced amicably and then she ended up marrying another lab tech from Salt Lake and she went to work there for a reference lab. They call it an ARUP - associate (something) university pathologist. She'd been there ever since and she retired last year.

Jimmy, graduated in biology and went to work for a zoo in Jackson, Mississippi. He said one day, "Mom, Dad, I'd rather train the animals than take care of them." So he went to school in Florida and became an elephant trainer and did that for 12 years or so. Met his wife, who was a concierge, or whatever, everything you go buy at a circus. With this circus, it toured Canada. She was in charge of that. And they met and after a while, they married. When Sammy was born they left the circus.

Jaap: What an interesting profession.

Patterson: Oh, he loved it. He loved it. Yeah, he really enjoyed it. You know, he spent four or five months in Japan with Ringling Brothers.

Jaap: So, speaking of Japan, so when you went to Korea, your wife stayed in Japan for a while. Did your wife ever go to Korea or did she stay in Japan?

Patterson: No, she stayed in Japan. She was a volunteer for the Red Cross. And her duty after Korea was primarily getting families ready to go home after the father or the husband had been killed. Then our casualties were shipped back by freighters to Fukuoka. Then they would get on the train to Fort Nash general hospital in Tokyo. Meryl learned that they were stuck in freight yards, so she and a group got together and got coffee mugs and donuts and met the trains.

Jaap: Interesting.

Patterson: Yeah, it was nice. She saw my name on the toes of some of them.

Jaap: Oh, really?

Patterson: We'd write what was done on them and so forth and put it somewhere. When we were in Korea, when we were a POW hospital, I mentioned we went duck hunting, but one of our surgeons, his father and mother were Presbyterian missionaries. Presbyterian Church was really quite strong there. Well, the Anglican Church was too, but he found out about a leper colony outside of Pusan. And his folks had established that. So we got in the Jeep and went there to visit them. That was kind of exciting when they found out who he was.

Jaap: And what was that like?

Patterson: Leper colony. People deformed and whatnot.

Jaap: Could they treat that at that time?

Patterson: There was no treatment. No. Nothing then. Now with [inaudible] they treat it. But there was no treatment at the time.

Speaking of illnesses, when I was interning, I had a case of typhoid in San Diego. And they had gone to Mexico. And I had to call my dad and ask him how to treat it. We didn't see typhoid fever very much those days. I had a case of malaria when I was practicing here in Butte.

Jaap: Oh, here you did?

Patterson: He had been down south and I don't know if he went to Mexico or not, but anyway. He was having these strange fevers and it dawned on me, "geez, they're every other day." That sounds like malaria. So we did a blood test smear on him and they found it.

Jaap: Wow. So what else was it like here in Butte? What did you do? So you went skiing a lot. Nightlife here. Did you guys go to restaurants or theaters?

Patterson: Yes. In those days . . . Well, the dance floor at the pavilion at the gardens. It was the best floor in the world. It was on springs, I think. And big bands were coming there. I mean, I think the last one was Harry James. But Meryl and I loved to dance. And that was a great thing to do. And then we formed what's called the Continental, in fact I gave Ellen a list of the members of the Continental Club. I would say there were about 30 or 40 couples of us. And we would bring, well, New Year's Eve was a hard time to dance. It was always crowded and noisy. So we decided to do this and have a separate dance event on New Year's. Well, it ended up, we did it twice a year. And we would hire bands. And it was formal. We'd have dinner. And the gals wore their formals and we wore tuxes.

Jaap: And where did you have the dances at?

Patterson: I think it was the Country Club. And the Finlen Hotel. Oh, my gosh. That ballroom there downstairs was perfect. Yes. And then I think maybe we might have used the Masonic Hall because they have a dance floor downstairs too. But there would be 70 or 80 of us.

Jaap: Really? Yeah. How long did that go for?

Patterson: Well, they quit because bands became too expensive. They were hard to get. We had to go out of state to get them. So that's where Meryl and I got interested in our cruises. We went to Europe half a dozen times and went to one country at a time. But we got tired. We didn't like flying. The same thing in the states. We visited every state. We either took the train or drove to every one.

Our first cruise was around South America and that was 58 days, and it was wonderful. You get on the cruise, you unpack and they take care of you. And they had dancing almost every night. They had all sorts of guest speakers. And it usually made stops. We made 25 or 30 stops. And then you have a choice of three or four tours at each stop. So we liked that so much that our next one was from Vancouver, BC to Los Angeles, but across the Pacific. That was 60 some days. Again, yes. We wanted to see those places, we had to go there by ship. Then our last cruise was an around the world cruise. But we got on in Los Angeles and then got off in New York on the [inaudible] which was wonderful. We got bumped up.

Most of our cruises were on the Holland America which we liked because they're small. They're all only twelve hundred or fifteen hundred passengers. The QE2 was a small, relatively small cruise ship. And on our cruises, we take middle class, because usually on the Holland America, it would be on the deck floor, you could walk around. We liked to take our walks. And that's what we chose on the QE2. And then they asked us if it was alright if we got bumped up to a higher room. We said, "Sure." No increase. They knew they could sell ours. But on the QE2, they were British, they were pretty class conscious. And there are three dining rooms according to what your room was in. So we got bumped up. We were in the middle. We got bumped up to the top. That was fun.

Jaap: And you told Ellen and I that you got to sit with...

Patterson: Well, the table next us was Mary Higgins Clark and her husband.

Jaap: I told my coworker that. She's a huge fan and you should have seen her face. She was so excited.

Patterson: And we had something in common. Jimmy's son has Asperger's and she had a grandchild with autism. So it was kind of fun. She was on from L.A. to Sydney. And of course, they have those speakers. But she gave two talks while she was there. She got off in Sydney. And the British, you could take those cruises in three or four segments. A lot of the English would do that. They'd take one segment and then in two or three years they'd take the next segment. So eventually they go around the world. They had to pay for it rather than hitting it once. Oh, it was interesting. We enjoyed it.

Jaap: Cool, pretty neat. I don't know if I have any more specific questions. Do you, Clark?

Grant: I was curious, when you're treating someone, especially who has wounds from combat, did it affect you or was it all business?

Patterson: It really was. And you would come sort of immaterial. You have to. You do it. And you won't see him again. We had other physicians that took care of them. Made rounds and saw them. Yeah, and unfortunately you do. They don't really become patients. And I guess, while we were there, the Hope, I think it was the Hope, was a naval hospital ship, came in one night and shared the patients. And boy, we got to bed at 2:00 or 3:00 in the morning. The next day, we got all of them. We went to visit them. What the hell happened? They were still scheduling them like a regular hospital. Well, in the war zone, you can't do that. You got to get them in and take care of them quickly.

Jaap: So before those two teams were established, did you guys get breaks? I mean, how long did you get to sleep, if there were only two?

Patterson: Well, when there were just the six of us, we'd get through around . . . well the patients, they usually came in around midnight. So we’d get them cleaned up by 7:00 or 8:00 in the morning, maybe 9:00 a.m. We would take naps and go to bed. Then go through it again. And then when the others came, as I say, we'd go on 7:00 to 7:00. Twelve-hour shifts. I guess it was 7:00 to 7:00. I can't remember.

Jaap: And the MASH units you set up, was that one of the first MASH units in Korea? Is that right?

Patterson: No, when they flew in the first Cav and the 24th Division, there was another division, and they each had the MASH units with them, but then they all came down. We were a U.N. unit and we had Scotch and Thai, English, French troops. We had to have interpreters. And Turks came in, they were hard. We had to get someone, and oftentimes they were from New Orleans who could speak French, who could speak Greek, who could speak Turk to get through this. And we had French casualties. But the worst were the Scotch. They had such a brogue, you couldn't understand them. Yeah, we had to have interpreters. And fortunately, there were enough, though wounded or personnel in there that we had interpreters.

Grant: My only other question, my final question, was, you had said after that strike of '58, Butte had started to decline. Since then do you think it's just been a steady decline only?

Patterson: Oh, I don't think so. I think in the last five or six years it's beginning to pick up a bit.

Grant: Really? What indicators are there?

Patterson: I just think Butte is more optimistic. Although Butte people...they're not downers. They won't admit defeat. That's the joy of living in Butte. Oh, gosh, everyone would look over the problems they're having. No. Yeah, and then the flat, started building homes in the flat. And that's what's hurt downtown, because everyone's moving on the flat and the other areas, or on the East Ridge. So I think that's hurt downtown more than anything.

Jaap: Yeah. The spreading out. Yeah.

Patterson: But, no, I think Butte has stabilized. Eight or nine years ago, I said, "Gee, I think just it's improved the course. MSE was strong for a while and then other things would come in. Then the solar plant was a big improvement. And then the freight yards. I am a railroad nut. And I go out there occasionally. Now they're going to build a malt factory out there. And so it's more diversified now. Of course, the pit is here. And then the people that bought the Metals Hotel. He did an awful lot for Butte. And there are others as well. So, yes, you become a Buttite, you're always optimistic.

Grant: Yeah, well, said.

Jaap: All right, Jim, unless you have anything else to add. I think we're at a good place to wrap it up.

Patterson: All right, fine.

Jaap: I appreciate you coming in today.

Patterson: Surely. What are you going to do with these?

Grant: Mainly, we'll just have them on record.

Patterson: Are you doing this to other cities as well?

Grant: I'm just focused on Butte.

[off record]

Patterson: That was used on Tuberculosis when that was striking. Because you know when we came here, there was a TB hospital. And outside of Deer Lodge, the CCS has it now or something. But, you know, the TB hospital, and then, of course, they had silicosis patients, emphysema patients there. I never heard of silicosis, when I came here. I went back and took a course in Detroit because they had silicosis, because they were using sandblasting on automobiles. So I went back here to learn a little bit about it.

And I think I told you about how I ex-termed between my junior and senior year because med-school stopped in the middle of the year and I had time off and I worked for my dad and I would do X-ray. And in those times, a tube was there and you'd see sparks going up and down the wires. But oncology and antibiotics. It was a broad spectrum. When I was in Japan, they had a typhus epidemic. And that is the same kind of germ that causes Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever. But anyway, they had this and that, so I went to a Japanese hospital to see the patients. And fevers of 103, 104 and 103. And then orientomycin, which was the first broad spectrum, came out. Wham! Boy, it just stopped it immediately. It was fun. It was interesting to see that.

Grant: Miracle.

Patterson: Well, they were. All of them were miracle drugs. And then over time, of course, bacteria have developed resistance to them. So now we have problems with them.

Grant: Do you think that's a great concern?

Patterson: Oh, it is. I'm sure it is. But they'll overcome it some way. But bacteria are unique. They find ways of mutating, I guess.

Grant: They'll probably inherit the earth.

Patterson: No, I think, uh, ants will.

Grant: And cockroaches.

Patterson: You don't have them here in Butte, do you?

Jaap: Cockroaches?

Grant: I haven't really seen one.

Patterson: Another thing you don't have here are fleas. We brought our dog from Japan, he was getting bare spots from scratching himself from fleas. And it wasn't a month, they were gone.

Grant: I like that about being up here.

Patterson: And you know about too, they don't have chiggers.

Grant: Right. Chiggers. I got chigger scars.

Patterson: Noseeums.

Jaap: What's that?

Grant: It's like this tiny little red thing kind of related to the tick.

Patterson: You get out in the grass. All of a sudden, you get it and you're scratching yourself.

Grant: Yeah. They like imbed in your ankle. Even if you're wearing socks and jeans. I'd walk through my parents yard, get chiggers all over you. And they're almost invisible. I don't miss that kind of stuff.

Patterson: Yeah. It is cold here but you don't have the other problems.

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