Blood Trumps the Power of Love

by Healan Barrow ©2013

In the mid- to late-1890s, my grandmother, Corrie Healan, wanted to marry a doctor. She lived on a prosperous farm and/or plantation in Northwest Georgia. Since she lived in a rural area, she had to devise a way to meet a promising candidate for the medical profession. And she did.

A young man from a neighboring farm began visiting her. When he realized that the path to her heart involved becoming a doctor, he decided to pursue the profession. He had one problem. He hated the site of blood.

At the time the medical profession was changing, and more and more schools in the US were offering a curriculum for those who wanted to become a doctor. He could have attended one of the medical schools based in Atlanta, Georgia.

She told me the following story about this young man who had attempted to win her heart.

“One day, when he visited me, he said his professor told him to put a vial of blood on the mantelpiece in his bedroom. He hoped that looking at the vial every day would cure him of his problem.”

“What did you say next?” I asked.

“I told him to keep looking at that blood.”

“Did it work?”

“No. The last time he saw me, he said he had thrown the vial in the fireplace. He said, ‘I’ve come to tell you good-bye. You don’t want to marry me – you want to marry a doctor.’”

Several years later, when she couldn’t find a doctor, she married a drummer, or salesman, who sold pharmaceutical supplies.

Sources: stories from my grandmother

An interesting online article about the growth of the medical profession is located online at http://www.encyclopedia.chicagohistory.org/pages/805.html