The Memoirs of an E. S. Physician

William H. Johnson
90 pages, indexed

This is the story of a Philadelphia youngster who, barely past infancy, was sent off by his working mother to his grandmother on the Eastern Shore of Virginia, There he first attended Tidewater Institute, a small Baptist school. It was here he began to build the educational foundation that would lead to a successful medical career. He had just completed his internship at Mercy Hospital, passed his Pennsylvania Boards, and all but completed arrangements to set up his practice in Philadelphia, when the stock market crashed. His mother, sensing the difficulties her son would face ministering to jobless blacks, urged him to return to the Eastern Shore. Disappointed, he returned to Virginia, set up a practice in Cape Charles, Virginia, eventually married, and became a community leader. Denied admittance to the County Medical Society, he organized the Delmarva Medical Society and began the battle against racism on the Shore.