Muscogee County GaArchives Photo Person.....Blanchard, Dr. Mercer 
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Christine Thacker http://www.genrecords.net/emailregistry/vols/00033.html#0008100 April 28, 2007, 8:06 pm

Source:             Special Sesquicentennial Supplement IV Ledger-Enquirer
Name:               Dr. Mercer Blanchard
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http://www.usgwarchives.net/ga/muscogee/photos/blanchar12685gph.jpg
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                        Dr. Blanchard Loved By All
                            By Sara Spano
                       Ledger-Enquirer Staff Writer

   The late Dr. Mercer Blanchard doesn't need any testimonial from me about the 
affection and esteem this community had for him. He was loved devotedly by 
everyone who knew him.
  He held a very special place in my heart because he helped a rather elderly 
parent raise two children and still retain her sanity. (I must admit that 1 
think he sometimes questioned" the "sanity" bit.) Most of you already know that 
the 142-year old-Goetchius House stood on the corner of 11th Street and Second 
Avenue until 1969. For 20 years it served as Dr. Blanchard's office.
  Billions of children, including my own, remember going there for his medical 
know-how, plus a sprinkling of his sage advice. (The children got the first 
part and the parent benefitted from the second.) We were a close-knit group in 
the waiting room as mothers sat or leaped around to drag a child back into her 
domain. Children laughed, played, yelled at the top of their lungs, wet the 
floor and every now and then one threw up his breakfast. No matter, we were all 
used to this.
  When we got into the office things were pretty much the same. About six 
infants, in various stages of undress, were all doing the things they'd done in 
the waiting room. Just  Dr. Blanchard started to give your two-year old a shot 
in his rear end, he might be called to the telephone to advise a frantic mother 
whose baby had swallowed a thimble.
  After setting this matter, one might have to guide him back to the right baby.
  Presiding over these affairs was his office nurse, Mrs. Susie Keene, who was 
positively unflappable. I have never known any one individual who had more 
patience, more kindness or  love for children than did Mrs Keene. Just the 
sound of   her voice when I talked to her on the phone could make me feel 
everything was  going to be all right.
  Dr. Blanchard also doctored parents. He arrived at my house one night about 
nine o'clock in answer to my frantic call.
'The blasted baby, who wasn't dying as I had thought, had gone peacefully off 
to sleep. Looking me over he said, "Sara, the baby just had a touch of colic 
but I think you're in a pretty bad fix. Get this prescription filled in the 
morning and take it three times a day." Helped me a lot!
  My sister-in-law was even worse than I was about her children. One day she 
dashed into the doctor's office, clad in a house dress in which she'd been 
cleaning the stove, clutching her desperately ill child in her arms. Dr. 
Blanchard proceeded to put things in the right perspective. Taking her by the 
shoulders he stood her in front of a mirror and said sternly, "The baby has a 
little stomach upset, but just look at you." There she was in the grease-
stained house dress but on top of her head she had carefully pinned her Sunday 
hat consisting of three large red roses. Both doctor and mother burst out 
laughing.
  For 54 years Dr. Blanchard was our school physician and regularly inspected 
our students. He also served as doctor for our athletic teams.
  My idea of heaven is a place where one does the thing that one loves best of 
all. If this is the case, I'm certain that Dr. Blanchard has already set up his 
office and is attending to all the little baby angels who have sprained a wing 
or just don't feel too well.
   One thing is for sure, It  has to be a nicer place just  because he's there.

Special Sesquicentennial Supplement II
Ledger- Enquirer, Sunday, May 7, 1978. S-19.



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