PATAGONIA HERITAGE People & Places: Honoring "Country Doctor" Delmar Mock

Too often we forget outstanding individuals who have made their indelible mark on the culture and traditions of Patagonia - like Dr. Delmar Mock who found his Eureka! in southeastern Arizona.
Your blogger had the pleasure to meet him just last week around the occasion of both his and his wife's Cleo's 93rd Birthday observed without fanfare but radiating quiet devotion and loving warmth to each other at their home, much like their lives throughout the 37 years of community service with people here, covering 2,500 square miles and driving between 2 and 3 million miles.
At a time when the country is in the middle of "reforming" healthcare this beloved gentle man and his wife, of uncommon passion with a strong faith and indomitable spirit,
defined the role and the living legend of the disappearing country doctor.

Here's a direct quotation from the foreword to the book - that should be taken to heart today: "Life is a struggle, at best, and not everyone could fit into the demanding professional life-style of small-community health care as presented in the ensuing stories. Yet hundreds and thousands of small communities still exist where willing caregivers could still go to serve their fellow men rather than live their lives fulfilling selfish interests.
Our wish is that this story may be a stimulus to young professionals in the healing arts who may choose to join in the march to care for the grassroots medical needs of our country. [bold emphasis mine]. We need - and salute - medical specialists and their gifts. Yet we hope they will understand that small community practitioners are not second-rate caregivers. We grassroots caregivers often have to stand alone in making treatment choices, some of which may have a life-or-death impact on the patient."

ANOTHER QUOTATION FROM THE DOC:
"One of the needs of the world today is to reuse the stepping stones of the past to carry us into the future." Yeah . . . & Amen
The Doc is commemorated here with this marker in the park named after him for his 37 years of community service

A book published in 1999 and available at Mariposa Books tells that life story.
Fool's Gold: Chronicles of a Country Doctor The Story of Dr. Delmar Mock
by Carolyn Rathbun-Sutton