Charles F. Ashby, M.D., of Geneva has donated more than 300 books — spanning three generations of Fillmore County physicians — to the UNMC McGoogan Library of Medicine. Dr. Ashby, a 1942 graduate of the University of Nebraska College of Medicine, is a third-generation physician in Fillmore County.
Dr. Ashby followed in the footsteps of his father, Dr. Albert A. Ashby, and great-uncle, Dr. Sherman F. Ashby. The three generations of physicians have provided medical care in Fillmore County for more than 117 years.
The books range in date from 1848 to 1987, with the majority from between 1900 and 1930.
Meet three generations
Dr. S. F. Ashby practiced in Fairmont from 1885 to 1924, and also served as mayor of Fairmont, a member of the school board, and city physician.
Dr. A. A. Ashby practiced in Fairmont and Geneva from 1913 to 1968, and served in the Army Medical Corps during World War I, as well as serving as a member of the Fairmont school board, and as a Burlington Railroad surgeon.
Dr. Charles Ashby served on a destroyer with the United States Navy in the Pacific during World War II. After the war, Dr. Ashby returned to Fairmont, where he practiced with his father. In 1947 Dr. Ashby opened his own office in Geneva. His father later joined him in the Geneva office, while continuing to see patients in Fairmont.
In 1987, Dr. Ashby and his sister-in-law, Kathryn Ashby, donated the Ashby Clinic in Fairmont to the Fillmore County Historical Society to be used as a county museum. The clinic building was home and office for Dr. A. A. Ashby. The Ashby clinic was the original building for the Fairmont Creamery, which started in 1884. It became a medical office in 1907, and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The Fillmore County Museum contains a medical office exhibit of items from the three-generations of Ashby doctors.
A multi-generational medical family
The Ashbys are one of many multi-generational medical families in Nebraska, said John Schleicher, head of special collections and assistant professor at the McGoogan Library of Medicine. “The state has a small population, and the medical profession is a tight-knit community within that small population, often with members of the same family upholding the tradition of becoming medical professionals,” he said.
About the collection
This fall, Schleicher made two trips to Geneva and Fairmont to evaluate and pack up the Ashby medical books. One of the books in the collection, which originally belonged to Dr. Joseph Bixby of Geneva, still contains the original receipt from the Medical Department of the J. B. Lippincott Company of Philadelphia, giving a 1909 publication price of $6. With the receipt was a piece of notepaper stamped “Dr. J. Bixby, Office Over Palm Theatre, Geneva, Nebraska.”
The books will become part of the History of Medicine and Nebraska Collections at the McGoogan Library of Medicine.