“The good physician treats the disease; the great physician treats the patient who has the disease.”
— William Osler (1849 -1919), one of the founding Johns Hopkins Hospital professors and creator of residency programs.
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“Come in Dr. Reitz.” With those words, my grandmother welcomed the Pittsburg, Texas, family physician of many years into her home. “Thank you for coming. S.V. isn’t feeling well; he’s coughing and feverish.”
Sylvester Aldridge was my grandfather’s full legal name. No middle initial. Why she called him S.V. was a question I never thought to ask.
The good doctor pulled a chair next to the bed, opened his small black bag, and took out a tongue depressor and a thermometer. “I expect your fruit trees will be blooming before long,” he small talked with my grandfather.
Standing silently at the edge of the room, I was just tall enough to peek over the windowsill. The physician’s shiny new 1951 Chevy sitting in the driveway caught my eye. When I looked back at him, we made eye contact. I can still hear his deep voice say, “My, you’re getting to be a big boy.”
Dr. P.A. Reitz had delivered me into the world a little more than three years before that day. On a cold January 20, 1948, evening at the M&S Hospital he founded in Pittsburg. I don’t remember much about that day, but I was told light snow was falling outside.
I do remember house calls, once a common convenience by small-town physicians that slowly slipped into the past in the years that followed. A time when doctors wore suits and ties in the clinic and for house calls. And nurses wore white uniforms and caps. When “scrubs” were seen only in operating rooms.
Much of my childhood healthcare fell to Dr. Reitz. Dad’s years with Perry Brother’s five-and-dime stores moved us from one small Texas town to another before Mount Pleasant became the last stop. Many of my summer days, however, were still spent at my grandparents’ house.
“He’s going to need some stitches, Mrs. Aldridge.”
The wound for which I still display a scar on my head was inflicted during an afternoon of friendly playtime. Granny was enjoying afternoon coffee inside with her friend, Mrs. Martin. Outside, Mrs. Martin’s grandson and I whiled away the time with comic book fantasies. I don’t remember if I was the good guy or the bad guy, but I became the wounded guy when the other youngster got the drop on me with a piece of pipe. From atop a car in the driveway.
“Get a good grip on him,” Dr. Reitz cautioned my grandmother. His recall of my extreme dislike for doctors wielding needles was impeccable.
Those aged memories offer a different perspective on healthcare of today. Opinions abound, but popular views rival genealogical histories of Biblical proportions.
“Therefore, in all the days of medicine, throughout the land, specialization begat doctors passing small towns for big cities; and that begat the decline of rural hospitals; which begat small towns with clinics staffed by P.A.s and nurse N.P.s who take care of routine exams and illnesses begatting acute cases to emergency rooms or specialists.”
In bigger cities.
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Dr. P.A. Reitz, one of Pittsburg’s best known, most respected and beloved citizens, died at M&S Hospital early Monday morning after suffering a massive heart attack,” the 1978 newspaper article in my archives read.
The yellowed paper news story bore no attribution. I suspect from the heartfelt and personal tone used by the writer, it might have been published by Pittsburg’s long-time local newspaper, the Gazette.
Dr. Reitz was born April 18, 1904, in Kansas. He moved to Pittsburg in 1935. He was a graduate of the University of Nebraska Medical School and completed his internship at Parkland Hospital in Dallas. He served in the U.S. Army in Europe during World War II.
“He was a family doctor for 43 years …” the story shared. According to the newspaper tribute, Dr. Reitz gave M&S Hospital to the citizens of Pittsburg in 1968.
“The business community closed Thursday afternoon for his funeral at the First Methodist Church,” the clipping concluded. “Interment was at Rose Hill Cemetery.”
I still visit Dr. Reitz … in a manner of speaking. My father and mother, Leon and Indianola Aldridge, are buried at Rose Hill Cemetery. Right next to Dad’s parents, Sylvester and Hattie Lois Aldridge.
Just across the narrow lane at the Pittsburg cemetery, maybe 50 feet away, are the graves of Percy. A. and Hazel Reitz.
I miss small-town hospitals with doctors’ offices in or near the facility. Doctors who made house calls and knew their patients like family. That said, I get it that change and adaptation are inevitable aspects of life.
Some things never change, though. Like needles. I still don’t like needles.
And I still don’t know why Granny called my grandfather S.V.
—Leon Aldridge
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Aldridge columns are featured in these publications: The Center Light and Champion, The Mount Pleasant Tribune, the Rosenberg Fort Bend Herald, the Taylor Press, the Alpine Avalanche, the Fort Stockton Pioneer, the Elgin Courier, The Monitor in Naples, and Motor Sports Magazine.
© Leon Aldridge and A Story Worth Telling 2025. Excerpts and links may be used, provided full and clear credit is given to Leon Aldridge and ‘A Story Worth Telling’ with appropriate and specific directions to the original content.
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