Sam, the neighborhood basset hound, knew where to find a kind heart and comforting hand.
"Every time it would rain, that poor dog would become afraid and come to our back door and start scratching to be let in. Of course, Mel would always let him in to our house. One time, that dog walked more than a mile to his clinic and begged to be let in. We have no idea how he knew the way, but somehow, he knew that's where he'd find Mel," Marge Geiger said of her husband.
Sam may be the first dog who ever begged to be let into a veterinary clinic.
Dr. Melvin Geiger was one of Springfield's best-known animal doctors. He practiced for 33 years with Capitol Illini Veterinary Services and later worked with the Animal Protective League.
Although veterinary medicine was his passion, he enjoyed bowling, fishing, gardening, family vacations, baking cookies and chocolate.
"He gardened and fished in the summer and then in the winter he baked and baked and baked," his daughter, Christa Babb, of Lawrence, Kansas, said. "He baked monster cookies – that was kind of his passion. He would bake them for the homeless. He'd bake them for the grandkids. He'd bake them for the neighbors. But he baked cookies three days a week. He was always baking cookies."
In addition to cookies, both he and his wife, Marge, cooked hundreds of nutritious meals for homeless people.
Melvin Geiger grew up Mennonite on a farm near Eureka, Illinois.
A negative experience with a high school teacher inspired Geiger to pursue a degree in the hypercompetitive field of veterinary medicine.
"My dad wasn't a great student in high school," Babb said. "He had a tough life. He worked hard on a farm. They didn't have a lot of resources. And he was kind of a rebel. In high school, one of his teachers told him that he was never going to amount to anything. ... I think that teacher making that negative comment really motivated him to prove to himself that he could succeed in what he chose to do, which was veterinary medicine."
Dr. Charles Starling, who was one of Geiger's business partners, added it was rare for someone from Geiger's background to go to college, much less pursue a post-graduate degree.
Starling said Geiger was not only a hard worker but someone well-liked throughout the Springfield community.
"Mel had lots of friends everywhere he'd go. We'd go to lunch – and I've lived here all my life – but I think he knew more people than I did. Everyone knew Mel."
This combination of affability and hard work enabled him to help build the practice into one of the largest in central Illinois, Starling said.
During his final years, Geiger was haunted by dementia.
"He got to the place where he didn't recognize anybody," Starling said. "I could sit and talk to him, but there was no reaction to it."
Despite this disability, he was able to solve a medical mystery, Babb said.
"As my dad got dementia, he really couldn't remember anything. But I could call him about dog problems," she said. "And he was always right about that. It was kind of crazy. One time, one of our dogs was really, really sick, and nobody could figure it out. None of the vets that we were going to could figure it out. My husband got on the phone and described what the symptoms were to my dad.
"He didn't have much of a memory about anything. But he told my husband, 'He got into rat poison and you need to give him heavy doses of vitamin K.' And he was absolutely right. Which was fascinating, because he wasn't right about much at that point. But he saved our dog's life over the phone."
Scott Reeder, a staff writer for Illinois Times, is the son and husband of veterinarians. His father, Donald Reeder, was a classmate of Geiger's at the University of Illinois College of Veterinary Medicine and his wife, Joan Saner Reeder, has practiced in Springfield for 22 years at Coble Animal Hospital.
