I was graduated from Loyola (New Orleans) with a D.D.S. in 1946; passed my boards, and completed a preceptorship in anesthesia at Baptist Hospital in New Orleans. While there, I hitch-hiked (No car; NO money! for the Greyhound) to Lake Charles to visit my Mother on a week end.

Drs. Walter Moss, Ben Goldsmith, W. A. K. Seale, Stanley Levy, and others urged me to come to Lake Charles as there was only one full time person doing anesthesia and he was being overwhelmed. Dr. George Kreeger was only doing scheduled cases and was about to retire, Etc. St. Patrick’s was THE ONLY hospital in Lake Charles and environs.

Mother started trying to find a place for me--I had no car.

She found that I could rent a room at 101 Grove, the corner of Grove and Wilson.  Mrs. Greene’s? So, when I left the Parish Prison (where I was living--that’s another story), at least there was a place for me to stay in Lake Charles. As you might know, this was just after WW II and there was little housing to be had.....

There were 4 of us living there: Alvin Dark, Tom Kirby, Quentin Trahan, and myself.

Alvin would sometimes come “home” at lunch times. He would frequently practice his golf, ‘putting’ or whatever, on the front lawn.

Tom and Quentin I rarely saw. They were busy with their jobs.

As for me, I was able to get a telephone in my room, probably by courtesy of the “interested” medical and dental folks and the nuns at St. Patrick’s. If I were “on call”, the phone would ring, night or day, rain or shine, and I’d jog to the hospital. VERY fine, built in aerobics!

Some months later, Carol and I were married. She had a car. Mother was able to come to the rescue again, finding a one bedroom, bathroom and kitchen house on Madison (now Bilbo, I believe).