Dr. Charles Roscoe Meek
As remembered
by
Alan Loar Meek, grandson

August 2, 1958 started out as any normal Saturday, with high hopes of enjoying a day with our neighborhood friends building forts in the fields that surrounded our house.  Only when I got up that morning, having come downstairs to see my mother on the phone with a very concerned look on her face, I suspected this Saturday would be different than any other.  It was a little while later I learned my grandfather had just passed away.

I was only ten years old at the time.  My grandfather loomed very large in my short experience, just like his physical stature, and his image would grow even larger over the years. Much of this is because he had two children that loved him very much and frequently related stories that showed the best of this man, and in part because of a very limited view of the world as seen through tiny eyes.  As I grow older I realize images often become exaggerated.  And yet, while I have become more capable of sorting out fact from fiction, those early opinions of Dr. Meek nevertheless continue to withstand the test of time.

Even at just ten years of age, there are many things I remember.  I remember him as large, yet gentle. He could be stern but I always felt fair. 

We often spent a weekend, or part of one anyway, at my grandparents home on Hamilton Ave., just west of Lorain’s downtown section.  When at their house, we seldom saw grandpa except in the evening.  He had his private practice set up on the second floor.  I generally recall sleeping on the second floor and watching Captain Kangaroo in the morning on a TV he had in what I believe was his patient’s waiting room.  Because of his late hours and late night emergency calls, grandpa slept in a bedroom off the living room while grandma slept in a smaller bedroom back by the kitchen.  Sometimes, we were allowed to sleep on the couch in the living room.  It was there that I remember being awakened late at night as grandpa turned on the TV to listen to the Saturday night fights, then relax in his cloth and brown vinyl recliner with spittoon on the floor to the right. I remember the TV ads for “Gillette” razors that always seemed to come on just a little louder than the main program. Then there were the occasional times my grandfather would set up his two-reel tape recorder to capture the voice of President Eisenhower from the TV set.  Once, in his last year, he woke Lowell and me up while we slept on that couch and asked us if we were hungry.  On condition of not waking grandma, he took us out to a little all-night diner at about 2 am where I remember eating a very greasy hamburger, but it was good.  He seemed very pleased we didn't wake grandma up.

There were the “penny” games he would play with Lowell, David and me where we needed to correctly guess whether it would come up heads or tails.  If correct, we got the coin. There were the card games I used to watch him play with my father and friends.  One day, when my father needed to temporarily leave the table during a game of Florida Canasta, I was allowed to sit in for him and promptly won the first two hands I played.  While I didn't often play cards with him after that, I always felt he had confidence in me if I would.  It wasn't until later I realized just how good a card player grandpa was in his own right.

Grandpa had a large, “lima bean” green Chrysler Imperial I used to think was something of a limousine.  I once thought he was an excellent driver, since he was slow and deliberate.  Later, I came to realize that the people honking at him weren't because he knew them but because he was driving too slowly, across lanes and the center line and even, later, I actually saw him go through a red light on East Erie Boulevard.  Later, his habit of weaving in traffic began to unnerve me some.  My father once related that grandpa took a trip out west by car but hired a driver.  Guess this was best, only he drove the driver nuts by having him stop at each and every historical marker along the way.

Grandpa made violins and would hang them up over the piano on the enclosed front porch to dry after putting a finish on them.  One day, he showed me a white violin he said he was making for me.  I had to tell mom later I had no interest in violin and assume she told grandpa, as I never heard anything more about it until it was later given to my younger brother.

As I have said, generally two or more of us spent the weekend at his house. But one Friday, after going to his house that afternoon, David, Lowell and I decided we wanted to go home Friday night because we had plans on playing with our neighbors.  David had brought his bow and arrow set and a target, which was set up outside on the front lawn.  After shooting arrows for a little while, grandpa came out to join us.  I can vividly recall him picking up the bow, placing an arrow on the string, holding the bow and the arrow close to his face and pulling back on the string until he touched his nose. I don't remember whether he hit the target or not but the image of him touching his nose with the arrow and string just tickled me to no end.  He played with us a little bit but not too long, as I recall.  Anyway, mom came to pick us up and return us home.  That was August 1, 1958 !

There was a funeral procession to Waynesburg, Penna. to put grandpa to rest. I was in the back seat of one car several cars from the lead, driven by my mother.  On the trip over, we were almost run off the freeway by a trucker but still managed to get there safely.  I don't remember much of the actual funeral service at the burial site but do remember going to my cousin’s (Charles Leslie Carpenter’s) Dairy Cream Shop afterward to get ice cream. We even were present as the ice machine came crashing through the front window !  It was, as far as I can remember, my first trip to Waynesburg and I remember being struck by the big, old Victorian type houses and what seemed like many relatives who were farmers.

For weeks later I remember still going to grandma’s on the weekends. I don't remember much change except that times were a little sadder.  I do remember answering the phone to hear the local police indicate there was an emergency and that they needed Dr. Meek, and being told to tell them he had passed away.

We spent some time helping grandma clean things up. There was a large walk-up attic off one of grandpa’s patient’s rooms. We had a good time clearing things out of the attic, finding much that represented grandpa in ways I had never known. There was the trophy indicating grandpa had beaten the then reigning champion in a Bridge Tournament in Cleveland, the World War 1 uniform, at least I think it was WW1 (khaki colored and doughboy or Rough Rider style with a bullet hole in the hat, I believe), old records of his patients, the numerous old National Geographic magazines we took special glee in throwing out the attic window to the driveway below. In one examining room on the second floor, while dusting off a cabinet, I found an old pistol. Grandma explained this was given to grandpa for services rendered where the patient had no other means of paying. The pistol traces back to the 1870’s and I later found one very similar displayed at the Smithsonian Institute in Washington D.C. I found test tubes in an examining room grandma let me keep (and which I kept until roughly 1979, when I gave them to my first born nephew), a small, old medical measuring device and box with counterbalance and tiny weights kept in a wooden drawer that I still have. In 1980, I was given my grandfather’s old safe that included his pocket watches, wedding rings and several other personal items I have kept.

In my college years, I took a class in Speech and was struggling to get a good grade, when the teacher asked us to speak about our most memorable figure. That was easy, I chose grandpa. The teacher told me my recollections flowed smoothly and effortlessly. That seemed to have set the tone for me. I got an A for the speech and wound up with an A in the class.

Finally, I'd like to add an aside about that wedding ring. When given to me in 1980,when I was 32 years of age, his ring fit over my thumb easily. That only solidified my feeling about this larger-than-life person from my past. However, today and some twenty years later, I am lucky to get it on my ring finger ! Time has a way of correcting images without destroying them.
Dr. Charles Roscoe Meek, M.D.
February 13, 1887-August 2,1958

He was born on a farm in Holbrook, Pennsylvania on February 13,1887. His father was Cephas Jackson Meek and his mother was the former Nancy Jane Loar. His grandfather James lived in the big farmhouse while his parents occupied the smaller cabin type structure about fifty feet away. His sister Velma was the eldest, then came papa, James Loar and Hildred.

He married Nettie E (her christened middle name) Waychoff August 13, 1913 in Waynesburg, Pa. Mamma was born July 10,1886 near Carmichaels, Greene County, Pa where grandpa Andrew Jackson Waychoff was the Superintendant of County schools. Papa then started private practice in Lorain, Ohio using a horse and buggy. They rented a house attached to Bin’s Grocery store which was located on the corner of East Erie and Colorado Avenues. In 1913, he became the school doctor which he held until 1919.

I was born January 6, 1916 and named Charles, after my father, & Jackson after the middle names of both my grandads, Cephus Jackson Meek and Andrew Jackson Waychoff. Cemantha Jane was born April 2, 1917 and named after grandmas Cemantha Mundell Waychoff and Nancy Jane Loar Meek. In the summer of 1917, Papa bought the house at 544 Hamilton Avenue, just three blocks from downtown, where he lived until his death in 1958.