Dr. Glenn Downing of
Waukesha – WVMA President 1968
Glenn Downing, DVM
My dad
graduated from Grand Rapids Veterinary College in 1904 and then went down to
Coldwater, Michigan where he practiced for a year or two and ran a lively
stable. Then he went to Kentucky, I think it was Shelbyville, to look over the
horse situation there. He liked it, but his wife who he had been married to
since 1900, went back in Michigan. They had one child so he came back and
practiced again in Coldwater. He saw an advertisement in one of the daily
magazines from a Dr. David Roberts, Waukesha, Wisconsin, wanting a
veterinarian. I think that's the way it went.
My dad answered the ad and went to
Waukesha, and hired out in 1907 working for Dr. Roberts. At that time, Dr.
David Roberts was state veterinarian and had a very fine reputation. He sold
different remedies for treating cattle and horse diseases such as abortion in
cattle, and abortion cure. He had liniments, udder balms, those sort of things,
and some kind of a treatment I remember he had for lampus in horses. My dad
stayed there for a short time.
By the way,
Dr. Roberts had a beautiful farm on Calhoun Road, which was about halfway
between Waukesha and Milwaukee and of course that area now is just full of
businesses and homes of all sorts. Dr. Roberts' dad set up a practice of his
own in Waukesha, and I think it was around 1911 they started TB testing herds
for accreditation or certification, in Wisconsin that testing started in
Waukesha County. My father was one of the testers, examiners, for TB in
Wisconsin I understand was the first state in the nation to become certified,
accredited for tuberculosis.
Dr. Herbert
Lothey became a partner with my dad. Dr. Lothey was with dad for 29 years,
until I graduated from veterinary college in 1945. In the 1930s when
brucellosis became a big problem in the state, my dad and Dr. Lothey were avid
believers of calfhood vaccination and they fought for calfhood vaccination, not
only calfhood vaccination, but infected herds, to vaccinate adult cattle.
I got into
school, and between my junior and senior year, Dr. Bartlett from Wisconsin came
up to Guelph and wanted to hire some students to come to Wisconsin to
inseminate cattle, mostly in northern Wisconsin. I wrote my dad a letter and
asked him. I told him that Dr. Bartlett said they were paying $200 a month, and
I was wondering what he thought about that for me. He wrote back and said,
"You're going to work for us, and we're going to pay you $150 a
month."
Dr. Lothey
was engaged. He had been a bachelor all these years, but the past few years
while I was in school, he was engaged to the widow of George Rasmussen, founder
and president of National Tea Company, so I came to Waukesha. Dr. Lothey
retired and married Mrs. Rasmussen and they had a very nice life.
I graduated
from the Ontario Veterinary College at Guelph, Ontario, in 1945. It was a
five-year course at that time. If my memory is not wrong, I believe, when I
graduated in 1945, there were 80,000 cattle in Waukesha County, and that meant
there were more cattle than there were people in Waukesha at that time.
Dr. Downing passed away on August 19, 1999, and
was not able to complete this interview.
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