Dr. Leonard A. Anderson of Glenwood City – WVMA
President 1975
During my presidency
The federal
area veterinarian, his name was Dr. Ray Biller. He lived in Balsam Lake, and he
asked ked me if I was interested in being a candidate for president of the
association. Thinking that he just needed names, I said sure, you can submit my
name. Then it came down to a vet in Wausau, Dr. Norb Arnoldi, and his wife was
a veterinarian for the state for a while. It came down to that, I thought there
wasn't much of a chance because I wasn't well known in the state, but
eventually I got it. I really enjoyed the meetings. We would try to visit all
of the local associations throughout the state. While you're president-elect
one of your roles is to visit all local associations and that was one of the
parts that I think I enjoyed the most, but I didn't like the driving.
Annual meeting
We had a
hypnotist at the banquet. I don't remember that we had a speaker. We didn't as
such, but we had a hypnotist that was very entertaining.
Veterinary school
issue
The school
was being considered at that time and I frankly had a lot of indecision about
if we needed the school. Of course, I'm up here pretty close to Minnesota, so
that might have swayed some of my thinking about it. But in Minnesota, talking
to the Dean and people from there, said they would increase the capacity and
increase their numbers up to like 40 out of Wisconsin if we would make a
compact with them. So, I had lots of indecision about a school.
This was
totally our feeling up here in northwest Wisconsin. It was probably 95 percent
opposed to a school. So I kept questioning it. It wasn't very popular to say
down there, especially to Bill O'Rourke, because he was gung-ho on the school
and felt that that would enhance our prestige if we had a school in our state
and I had no trouble believing that. You know, I just didn't think the school
made that much difference, but it sounds like it's going and they've got it
functioning well.
The changing profession
The
profession was changing even at that time and it looked promising. There were
all kinds of ways of making a living, plus doing a good job, but I thought we
should have used more of the techniques and lab work and that type of thing
than what we were using. My partners weren't always convinced that we should
spend money that way, but I would have preferred to have more, and maybe that
was using them as a crutch. You still have to make a diagnosis somehow.
One of the
things I started trying was to get a program for so many dollars, I think the
first figure I used was $26 per cow per year. I would do all the pregnancy
work, and put magnets in all the heifers, dry cow treatment, then culture them,
and worm the cows as they were coming fresh. This program was supposed to
increase production by 480 pounds, they proved it in Wisconsin. Bangs
vaccination of the heifers didn't sell very good.
When I was
practicing, every mile that use to have two or three farms, may not have any
more. So I was just counting the road, coming in on Hwy. 128 from Hwy. 12, the
number of farms that use to have cattle, and I think I counted 12 active dairy
farms in 1960. And there are two now.
Final thoughts
I kept
thinking that I was sure I'd want to start practicing again. But it's changed
enough that maybe, at my age, I'd have trouble coping with the paperwork, and
the government regulations, and restrictions on types of medicines.
Burr Nussdorfer - Personal Comments
Good evening, this is Burr Nussdorfer, and I'm home.
It's around 8p.m. after kind of a long day and I just thought that it might be
worth a couple minutes to put a little addendum on the tape so to speak. Today
was a real long day. We left early this morning and didn't get home until just
a little bit ago. I would like to say that this finishes my
responsibility as far as the interviews are concerned,
and that I've enjoyed the visits very much. The visits carried me into
southwest Wisconsin, south central Wisconsin, north central Wisconsin, and
today the last thing up in northwest Wisconsin. These doctors who were
interviewed were of my era so to speak and their practices originally were
mostly with food-producing animals. Dairy farm numbers have gone down greatly
in all the practices that I visited but, oddly enough the personnel in these
practices have increased in numbers and they are busy and are branching into
different fields, so that's very encouraging. Another thing I thought was
interesting was to hear about the families about all these different
veterinarians, how successful practically all of them are; many of them are in
professional fields. I think that attests to good family upbringing that so
much of that we don't see now, so, Fred and our Historical Committee, I thank
you for the opportunity to do these interviews.
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