Clinton Dewitt Hubbard

Dr. Clinton Dewitt Hubbard was brother to my great grandmother, Ada Hubbard Lee.  He was born in 1865 at the end of the Civil War.  In 1905 Clinton moved his  family to Huntington Park, California.   Ada and her husband Fred made the move to California at the same time and lived next door to Clinton and his family.
Clinton wrote the following about his childhood and establishing his medical practice.  It is copied as he wrote it.

Auto biography before the Medical Group

                               Long time ago

I was born in the township of Henderson N.Y. near the eastern shore of Lake Ontario on December 14th 1865 exactly 8 months after the assassination of President Lincoln.  My Mother died of Typhoid Fever when I was 7 months old, this was before the time of S.M.A., Eagle brand or Malted milk and my Father fed me cows milk from a pint bason warmed over a kerosene lamp.  After two years another took the place of Mother and we moved into a log house for a time until a better one could be secured.  I had the pleasure a few years ago of visiting the old home.

I attended the proverbial "Little Red School House" and commenced my schooling there the year of  the "Great Chicago Fire."  My Father was a mechanic he worked at his trade summers and taught school winters so I learned my A.B.Cs. and a rigid dicipline from him.

The Centenial year marked the beginning of hard times, there were now 6 children in the family and the "pasture was short" on the approach of cold weather my shoes were worn out.  I rummaged through the attic till I found a shoe that was fairly good and fit me well but I could not find its mate, to that shoe but to no avail.  I did however find one a few sizes larger.  I hunted and prayed night and day that I might find the mate to that shoe.  The hole in the shoe I closed by driving in a few tacks from above.  It was not the rigid cold that disturbed me, no, it was the fact that the Teacher whenever she looked at me or spoke to me would cast her eyes down at that big shoe, even though I tried to keep it hid behind the good one, the chagrin which I suffered I learned later was due to pride. (note, years after, when in the big house, family all in and in bed, I would gather the shoes and put them in rows around the baseboard and say to myself "the lord did not direct me to find the mate to the other shoe but He helped me to get shoes for the whole family).  

I entered Union Academy, Belleville N.Y. the same year Edison invented the Incandescent Light, but my course was interrupted with months of work as farm hand, carpenter and tinner, attending this institution winters and finally graduated as president of my class, 13 in No. June 1888 previous to the time Koch discovered the T.B. (about that time). 

I had to choose things--In the fall after finishing my course at Union Academy I entered University of Michigan Medical Course at Ann Arbor Michigan and was graduated from that institution just about the time rubber gloves commenced to be used in the practice of medicine and surgery.  

I had to decide between an internship or a two year practice with an established physician and surgeon, I chose the latter and for two yrs taking post work in the hospitals in this and other countries.  After the two years were over I purchased the practice, which I had already earned, for 13 hundred dollars, then came the hard times of Bryans 16 to one[*], when no money exchanged hands and services were paid for with wood, oats, hay, hams, potatoes, side pork, etc collections averaged in money from 1.25 to $3.00 per week.

I was married the year of the "World's Fair in Chicago" and continued practicing in Parma Michigan until the year of the Earthquake in San Francisco [1906].  When our family got off the train in Los Angeles, we noted the time Nov. 1st, 12:10 A.M. we went to Hotel for the nite then to Cole Grove which now is called Hollywood, from there we soon went Huntington Park, bought lot then in shack till the house was finished in May 1906 or 1907.  about 800 people made up the city, some say 1200 inhabitants.

For two years I did work about the premesies and took extra in preperation for passing the examination for practice and commenced the practice in June 1908. Post Graduates,West side, Cook Co. Hospital Chicago; General Med' and Surg Ann Arbor; Gynecology U. of M.Peterson' Mas Gen, Hospital,Cabbott; Lane Hosptl San Francisco; Physical therapy, Chicago; Clinical Hospitals in Europe. Retired May 5th, 1950 

                                                                            C.D.H.

Clinton died in 1956 at the age of ninety-one.  His son, also Dr. Clinton Hubbard, had a dental practice in Huntington Park and it was to him my mother took me for my first visit to the dentist.

* Famous orator, William Jennings Bryan, in his "Cross of Gold" speech in 1896, pushed for the use of silver coinage at a ration of 16:1 (silver:gold)  in order to help out poor farmers. Republicans were against adding a new silver currency into the system fearing high rates of inflation.