It was 1954. We were young and we were green and we were interns in med school. We were rotated through various assignments to give us experience. This six weeks, we were in south Chicago, around Halstead Street, delivering babies. Babies were coming fast as peas shucked from a pod, but they weren’t as alike as peas — there were Hispanic babies, Irish babies, Afro-American babies, Polish babies, babies of every hue. We delivered them in their homes, often before an audience of adults and one, three, seven, or more children.
As soon as I delivered a baby, I was back at the end of the line, and the line moved fast. It was Christmas Eve; none of us was going home for the holidays. “Your turn, Craig,” I heard, and I collected the address and my delivery kit and headed out into the cold. I found the tenement, climbed five flights of rickety, drafty stairs, and knocked on a door. It opened, and I beheld the largest, blackest man I’d ever seen. “Lord!” he exclaimed. “Are you the doc?” I admitted I was. He led me past several family members to a shabby bedroom — all bedrooms on Halstead Street are shabby — and announced, “Doc’s here,” and I saw on the bed the moaning mother whose child I was to deliver.
She saw me, too. She lifted herself on an elbow, eyed me up and down, and said, “Here I lie on my bed of pain, and they send me a teenager!”
I gave what I hoped was a reassuring smile and got to work. Before long we had a squalling, perfect baby boy, and the father was all smiles.
“You gonna name the baby?” a small girl asked from the doorway.
“It’s Christmas Eve,” I said to her. “How about Nicholas for old Saint Nick?”
“No,” said the mother firmly. “What’s your name, sonny?” I gave her the name that all of us students had been giving when asked this question — the name of our medical-school dean. “It’s Dean Franklin,” I said.
“All righty, his name is Dean Franklin, after that baby doc,” the mother declared as I was taking my leave. I’ve heard it said that in the Halstead Street area that season, and for several years to come, many little boys were growing up with the name of our goodly dean. I doubt that he ever knew.
Dr. Craig Dougan lives near Portland, Ore. His sister Jacqueline Dougan Jackson is professor emerita of English at the University of Illinois at Springfield and a regular contributor to Illinois Times.
This article appears in Dec 14-20, 2006.
