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About Keizertimes. (Salem, Or.) 1979-current | View Entire Issue (April 7, 2017)
PAGE A10, KEIZERTIMES, APRIL 7, 2017 100, continued from Page A1 with room and board and he called me one afternoon to say that a new hospital had been built in town. They needed someone to be in the building 24 hours a day because of the boilers or they couldn’t stay open,” Casterline said. Casterline approached the administrators and soon enough he had an army cot in the basement with a wash basin fi lled from pitchers of water. Eventually, he became the day orderly. It was in that capacity that Casterline followed a nurse to the X-ray room to take a picture of a patient in a cast. Submitted On her way back, Casterline Dr. Vernon Casterline (front row, second from right) with his intern cohort at Portland’s St. Vin- stopped the nurse and asked cent Hospital in the late 1940s. if he could learn how to do that. He was told to go to the to anything in this world College was not something a man in Salem, Ore., and hospital administrator and worthwhile, and you have to he’d ever considered, but she invited him to come fi nd out if that was possible. go to school and get some another door opened about to live with her while he “I went to her offi ce and she more training in anatomy and six months later. One of attended school at Willamette told me there was no shortcut chemistry,” Casterline said. Casterline’s aunts married University. He took her up on the offer, arriving in Salem in January 1937, but had to borrow $5 to cover the $ registration fees. “There were still tracks from streetcars in the roads, but NOW THROUGH APRIL 30 Additional charge for I don’t remember seeing the over 15 feet. Customer supplies electrical. streetcars still in operation,” Casterline said. To make money for room and board, he decided to inquire about opportunities at the 12-bed Deaconess Hospital down the road from Willamette’s campus. Deaconess is now known as Salem Health. He offered to become the fi rst night orderly at Deaconess, but the administrator at the ASK ABOUT ALSO QUALIFYING FOR time, Frank Wedel, declined. MAJESTIC ECHELON II Casterline persisted. He $ DIRECT VENT GAS returned to the hospital once a week for a month until Wedel FIREPLACE MITSUBISHI GL – 12,000 BTU 2,899 Installed Cool Deals Hot Offers UP TO 550 OREGON TAX CREDIT HEARTH & HOME LLC As an Energy Trust of Oregon trade ally, we can help you access cash incentives to make it easier to improve your home’s energy effi ciency. ASK ABOUT LAUNDRY PRO 3800 River Rd N #180 Keizer - 503.378.1125 - CCB #200318 ® WITH CERTIFIED SPACE TECH Pucker up! We are Everything Except Overpriced Simple Cremation $795 Inexpensive Burial and Funeral Options Pre-Planning Available On-Site Crematory 4365 RIVER RD N, KEIZER 503.393.7037 Se habla español Saturday, May 20 Lemonade Day is the national event that teaches kids how a business works by operating a lemonade stand. With help from parents and spon- sors, kids create their own recipe, build a stand and sell lemonade. Create a recipe • Design a stand Attract investors • Do it alone or with friends Learn more at salemkeizer.lemonadeday.org Main Squeeze Sponsor Presented by Fresh Squeeze Sponsors Media Partners relented and gave him a job. “I think he just wanted to put a stop to it, but it created a job for someone else after me,” Casterline said. He was just fi nishing his course of study at Willamette in 1941 when the United States entered World War II. He enlisted and spent time in the medical corps. After fi nishing his stint with the Army, he qualifi ed for the GI Bill and was able to complete his medical degree at the University of Oregon Medical School in Portland, now known as Oregon Health and Sciences University. It was while interning at St. Vincent Hospital that Casterline met his future wife, Jean Ryser, who was a surgical nurse. In addition to her “bright raisin eyes,” Jean’s adeptness in the surgery room caught his notice. Casterline scrubbed in to observe an open-chest surgery one day while she was the nurse in the room and he enjoys telling the story to this day. “The doctor had reached out his hand for a tool and Jean put it there, but he told her it was the wrong one. Jeannie stood fi rm though and held it there. The doctor looked again and realized it was the right one,” Casterline said. The couple eventually married and had fi ve kids together. Jean served as the offi ce nurse when Casterline opened his fi rst offi ce in Keizer on Sept. 8, 1950. He shared an offi ce with dentist Jerry Bowerly and a building with pharmacist Earl Mootry. An offi ce visit was $4 or $5 dollars at the time, and there was something of an uproar when other local doctors started charging $7.50 for a new patient. House calls were between $5 and $7. “You lived a lot on farm products,” Casterline said. After he caught a 20.5-pound trout on his honeymoon with Jean, one of his patients stuffed and mounted it in return for delivering a baby. “The hardest thing to do was send a bill. That was something they never taught us in school,” Casterline said. Still, his practice grew rapidly. He earned enough in his fi rst year to pay off all the debt on the equipment he purchased for his offi ce. In 1956, when Mootry had a new pharmacy constructed nearby, Casterline moved to a new offi ce in the rear of the building. Modern day Keizerites know the site as Boucher’s Jewelers and Willamette Valley Animal Hospital. He said it was “great” being tapped as the team doctor for the Celtics, especially because he got to get into all of the games for free. Football and basketball were his favorite sports, but coach Vic Backlund turned him into a baseball fan. He still recalls vividly – as in he can name every team McNary beat – the Celtics’ path to the school’s fi rst football state title in 1997. Two years ago, he was invited to cut the ribbon at a dedication of the turf football fi eld at the school. Casterline retired from his private practice on Sept. 8, 1986, but he was far from through. He spent the next 22 years as the medical director of a plasma center in Salem. Throughout it all, Casterline’s youngest daughter, Debbi, recalls the ways her father chose to get involved in the community. “He would do screenings for the Shriner’s or free physicals for kids at churches. I was always really proud of it,” Debbi said. His advice for those who want to live to 100 – and even those who don’t – is to hold fast to the things that matter to you personally. “If you want something, go for it. Don’t give up on the fi rst try. If you want it and you’re qualifi ed for it, work for it,” he said. “Being around hospitals was something that got into my blood. I liked those surroundings. When I wanted that job as an orderly, I just kept asking.” Maker fair at OSU Oregon State University will host The Co., a two day event celebrating hands-on learning and maker culture, April 14 to 15 on the Corvallis campus. “SEA Through the Eyes of an Artist” will take place from 9:30 a.m. to 9 p.m. April 14 at Furman Hall. The fourth-annual Corvallis Maker Fair will be held from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. April 15 in the Memorial Union ballroom and the Student Experi- ence Center Plaza. Both events are free and open to the public. “Maker” culture is a popular movement honoring craftsman- ship and technology and the sharing of knowledge, skills and resources. Activities include an arts and science geocaching quest throughout the OSU campus; panels to inspire women and girls to enter STEM fi elds, presented by the campus groups Women in Science and Women in Engineering; and a show focused on arts and science presented by the Corvallis Public Library, and much more. Registration information, a complete schedule, exhibitor list and additional details about the events are available at www. corvallismakerfair.org.