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He was born in Renfrew, Ontario, in 1884, one of a family of five; the son of a watchmaker, jeweler, optician and part-time farmer. The family owned a small acreage where they grew garden sass and fodder for a cow. His early schooling was here.
He has, in his day, worked as railway construction laborer, harvest hand, schoolteacher, lumberjack, oarsman on a riverboat, hard rock miner, packer and medical doctor. But, above all, doctor! Following his father's wishes, finally he entered McGill University, at 30, to study for a career in medicine, after a decade or so of colorful early life in Canada's West.
He is, of course, our own old pioneer doctor and his name is Garnet Harvey Kearney.
When, at 17, he taught school in old Ontario, the yearly salary was $275 - with fringe benefits of room and board. Little more was the wage in Cypress Hills, a small community in what is now Alberta where he also taught. But teaching, young Kearney decided, was not his bag. "You didn't have to stay with a job you didn't like, in those days," muses our Doctor Kearney. Men didn't go looking for jobs then. The job came looking for you. Never enough men for the work there was: on rivers and lakes, freighting by boat, bush work, farm work, land clearing, railway building." The list of jobs available was endless.
Young Kearney loved it all the country, the work, the life, the people. But most of all, perhaps, he liked people; hence his decision to study medicine, in order to help them. Many an accident did he see, during those early years; often fatal and doctors were scarce.
He studied for five years at McGill, and worked for one year, to make enough money to complete his internship. His first practice, as a full fledged doctor, was in the west Savona, BC, a little town near Kamloops. Then followed two years in the vicinity of Hazelton and (then) Fort George moving with the railway crews, along the advancing line of track.
Post-graduate study took him back to McGill for a year, and he then practiced for another year in Montreal General Hospital.
But war changed the world of Garnet Kearney, as it did for millions more. It was 1914 and the guns were rumbling. Offered a position as ship's doctor on a vessel plying the Atlantic, after some indecision, he accepted. "Crossed the water 18 times, in 10 months," remarks the doctor. His work was with troop convoys.
Signing on one trip, for Belfast, Ireland, he found out on arrival there that the boat was to be refitted for combat duties, so Kearney returned to Liverpool and here was paid off. Refusing another position offered as ship's doctor, he went up to London where a brother lived. In a fortnight, his money gone, he accepted the next offer, that of ship's doctor on a freighter, sailing to Montreal for horses destined for the battlefields of France.
He then served at the front, as first-aid medic until the Armistice was signed. He has little to say of his experiences there, but we know he did his part to help in mud and blood that was World War I.
But finally the war was over and so was the doctor's work with the infantry and field artillery. So he again returned to Western Canada, this time practicing in small places such as Nakusp, Oliver, New Denver - beautiful little towns near sparkling lakes or rivers.
"Did you make a good living?" Well no - no one had much money - but the scenery was great! and lots of fruit and wild meat. I did all right. Doctoring shouldn't be done for money, anyway - I think the government should pay all doctors and get it from the people in taxes, or some other way." Lots of outstanding bills but G H Kearney, MD didn't mind if the ex-patients made some effort to pay, or brought him meat or fruit.
After two years with the department of health in the Lower Fraser Valley, he came to us in 1935, from Deroche. Dr Brown, whom he replaced here, had come as Indian agent and doctor; and did not like nor want private practice.
Marriage entered late into the life of Garnet Kearney. Meeting Mrs. Marjorie Van Volkingburgh when she worked in Hunter's Cafe in 1944, they were married and for 10 years. "Van", as she was known to her friends, looked after the needs and comforts of the doctor. Many was the companionable camping trip enjoyed by these two. Kearney, an ardent outdoors-man always, loving such pastimes as fishing and hunting and Van happily sharing these times. "She was a better shot than I was," reminisces the doctor. They picked berries, too, if the spirit moved them and the fruit was good.
But fate entered into the picture and Doc lost his beloved Van, in 1954. He continued his practice until the early 60's, when advancing age forced his retirement. Mention must be made of the years at the old Providence Hospital. In the hearts and minds of such nursing sisters as Sister Philomena, Sister Marcellina, Sister Catherine and Miss Poppe, Dr. Garnet H. Kearney has forever a place. Though of different religious views, they worked on common ground helping people, easing pain, saving life when possible, soothing the dying.
His means of conveyance, in summer and winter, too, when roads permitted, was his well known Model T Ford. Sometimes on wintry trails, a horse-drawn cutter was used. Many was the housecall made, over the years, come rain or shine, frost and snow, summer heat.
Given a small cabin by the late Bert Bowes, pioneer garageman in the town, the doctor has lived here since his retirement. Independent to a fault, he has over the years kept house for himself with the occasional help of friends. Here, he spends his retirement years, reading his innumerable books. A TV sits on a dresser-top unused. "Don't care for it, much," comments the doctor. "I'd rather read." Until a few years ago, the good doctor still enjoyed a hunting trip or fishing. Now failing eye sight makes this difficult. But the old eyes can still read the printed page, and read they do, endlessly. "Mechanics, or engineering," he replies. "Mechanics is an exact science; medicine isn't. It can't be. At best, a doctor's diagnosis is only an educated guess. In my day there were only three sure cure drugs; quinine for malaria, antitoxin for diptheria and mercury for syphilis. And they could fail if the disease had progressed too far."
Brought up in a Methodist household, Doctor Kearney has no particular creed, unless it be that of the humanist. An atheist, never, an agnostic, perhaps. He has a limited belief in the views held by the Christian Scientists. "Only a fool says there is no God," says he. "There has to be some super-intellect, and I believe in some continuing spirit existence, after death. Maybe for animals too, who knows? Animals are better than man, in some respects. They usually kill for a purpose; hunger, or self-preservation. Man kills for no such reason, sometimes organized killing and calls for God's blessing on it, for his side. He calls it war. All down the centuries, wars have been fought by those professing Christianity, too."
And so we of Fort St. John and surrounding area salute Garnet Harvey Kearney, MD PDE - Pioneer Doctor Extraordinary!
Written By Cora Ventress, Alaska Highway News, July 22, 1970
Things were quiet that night in the fall of 1939. Fort St. John was just a cluster of granaries, rude cabins and dirt trails. Garnet Harvey Kearney had had a heavy day at the Providence Hospital and as he sat in front of the radio transmitter with the mike cupped in his steady hands he knew that he had a few more hours to put in before he could call it a day.
It was 8 p.m. Everyone had been alerted to get off the net. Soon a voice crackled over the airwaves 600 miles away. Doctor Kearney's hands tightened on the mike because a young man was about to die if he didn't get help right away. Although the good doctor was not gowned an there was not the dramatic setting of an operating theatre, he was about to operate ... by remote control!
Actually the scene was set earlier in the day when Jack Baker radioed in from Watson Lake that he had a very sick man on his hands. Jack was manager for the old Yukon Southern Airways and as the lake was beginning to freeze over it was impossible to get a plane to land. There was no road and the Alaska Highway was a few years away.
Grant McConachie, president of the fledgling airline had promised a plane as soon as landing was safe and George Symons from his base in the Yukon with floats had actually tried to land in open patch of water but it wasn't big enough. "You see I needed an extra man and Grant had sent me one from Vancouver earlier in the fall," Jack recalled last week as we chatted in his office, in Fort St. John. He is now president of the J W Baker Agency Limited, one of the largest insurance offices in the province.
"He was a nice young fellow... name of Gordon Stock. About 21, I'd say. "A few weeks before this all happened he started to complain about a headache over his right eye. I could see that it was getting worse by the day and of course the poor fellow couldn't sleep. There was considerable swelling around his eye and the pain was becoming unbearable. I didn't even have an aspirin."
"What to do? Gordon was delirious by this time and as ther was no hope of getting him `outside'. The only thing I could think of was getting on the wireless and asking Doc, Kearney in Fort St. John... 600 miles away... what should I do?"
"I got through to him all right, but transmission was very poor and we talked by voice and key. I gave him all the symptoms and he diagnosed Gordon's ailment as a cyst on the brain. He told me that if the pressure was not relieved very soon Gordon would die."
"`Have you any surgical instruments?' Doc asked me, and I told him I had none. Any razor blades? Yes, I had blades. Well, he went to tell me that to save this maan's life there would have to be an incision made between the top of the eye and the eye socket deep enough to puncture the cyst but not touch the brain. Transmission as I said was very poor so we arranged to have a sched at 8 pm at which time I would operate on Gordon with the help of the doctor in Fort St. John.
"He had explained to me that I should take a new razor blade and snap a corner off of it so I would have a sharp point to work with. Have plenty of hot water and towels handy. "Did I have any liquor? the doctor wanted to know. Not a drop. Then he said I'd have to tie him down. You can understand that one false move would be curtains ... a fraction of an inch either way . . ." I could catch the excitement in Jack's voice as he warmed up to that dramatic event 31 years ago.
"Actually Gordon was semi conscious and there was no need to tie him down. That was a pretty long day. . . God I was nervous. Everyone had been alerted to get the hell off the air at 2000 hours, I broke a triangle bit off the blade and boiled it thoroughly . . . and waited. Right on the dot Doc came in loud and clear. I'd straddled Gordon on this office chair with his arms supporting his head. By this time he seemed moribund. "Doc's steady voice calmed me a little ... I was shaking like a leaf. I started to cut and was surprised at how tough human flesh is. I asked the Doc what was I to do about all the blood. 'Just wipe it up and keep the incision clear so you can see where you're going," he said. It seemed like hours in that stuffy little shack. Actually I guess it was just a couple of minutes. Finally I got down to the cyst which was quite hard. One little thrust and it burst."
"Matter gushed out . . . I'd say a half cupful. It had a very bad odor. At the very moment when the pressure was relieved, Gordon just slumped into a dead faint. You see the poor fellow hadn't slept for over a week ... he was really in a deep sleep. He slept soundly for 30 hours! I carried him over to a little cot we had in the shack, face down with towels under his face to catch the puss which oozed out continually for four days. I kept bathing the wound with hot salt water to keep it from healing over and allow it to drain properly . . . these were instructions of Doc Kearney ... we didn't have any other medication anyway.
"When Gordon woke up he was right as rain ... although awfully weak. It was three weeks before we could get him to a hospital and when he was examined, they said it was a real professional job. I was pretty proud of that.
Gordon stayed with Yukon Southern and is now with CP Air in Vancouver ... he has a tiny white scar over his eye and told me when he was up here a few years ago that he never had any more trouble.
And you know what ... when he came into the counter he really confused the girls ... he asked to see DOCTOR Baker!"
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