Remember When: an introduction to Dr. A. P. Durfey

By Guest Columnist Mary Jane Boutwell

Every family has its characters. Just think of your family and then a small town’s worth. With permission (I really did ask), I would like to introduce newcomers and youngsters to Ole Durfey, A.P. Durfey, Sr.

Any time I write “Dr. Durfey,” that is who I mean.

To start with, Dr. Durfey, Sr. was not Senior. He was Junior on his birth certificate. When his father died, Dr. Durfey followed an old custom. Dr. Sr. (as we would call him) moved up from Jr. but never managed it legally.

Dr. Durfey made a house call 70-plus years ago to check on a family member. He asked about washing his hands, and Mama sent him to the kitchen sinks. He used the hot tap water and Tide detergent. (Tide was the only soap that worked in our water - detergent, bath soap, dish soap, and shampoo). When he finished drying his hands, his comment was “When you say hot water, you mean hot.”

During the polio epidemic, Dr. Durfey diagnosed one brother with the virus and sent him to Vicksburg in a hearse (the only ambulance) on a dark, dreary day. There was not a lot of hope. After he came home and learned how to walk again, he was always called “cripple.” Even still, he had a wonderful, fulfilled life.

Years later, our son cut the web between his thumb and forefinger. As I took him to Dr. Durfey, the cut was bad enough that it needed to be sewn up. Dr. Durfey poured alcohol over the cut and tried to staple it. The skin was too tough, so Dr. Durfey took a needle and some thread and sewed it up. No pain medication, just needle and thread. When done, Dr. Durfey said, “keep
it clean and wash it with alcohol several times a day.” Tough doctor, tough patient!

Jim Lacey’s second history bits on Canton and Madison County tell of Dr. Durfey’s first driving experience – around the Square. No one told him about cars having brakes, so he ran into a wall in the stable his father ran in the Hollow. At the time, (I have been told), there were ditches around the Square and no traffic lights. The stable was on the north side of West Peace Street, possibly in the first block off the Square.

I have been told that Dr. Durfey graduated from Ole Miss with the highest GPA until the last twenty or so years. Percy Durfey, the youngest doctor, went off to college and came back to the high school and told the administrators they needed to do a better job. The school was not preparing students for college.

(Personal note, I came along after this conversation and got the benefit of tougher teaching. Thanks, Percy.)

After retiring, Dr. Durfey was drawing Social Security and decided to buy a new car. Heavy rains flooded Center Street just east of the Square. He drove into the depths of the water, and his car was ruined. Someone at the hospital asked him what he was going to do. He said, “Get another! Social Security is paying for it.”

Ole Dr. Durfey also played football at Ole Miss around 1918. I have seen a picture with him in his uniform wearing a leather helmet. With it on and fastened, it looked like an old bowling ball with a face – no cushioning. A head hit meant head-to-head…and still the highest GPA?

Dr. Durfey was around during the Yellow Fever epidemic that killed so many people. It was told that he could walk into a patient’s room, smell and diagnose the fever. All of this started when Percy Durfey Jr. told me his father’s death certificate - Allan Percy Durfey Jr. - was signed by Allan Percy Durfey Jr.

Also, the family has now worked all the way to Allen Percy Durfey IV.

One final Dr. Durfey story. When he was born in the late 1800s, he was so small, it was felt he would not survive. They put him into a small box in a warm oven. No incubator, but one healthy individual. The stove was a wood stove.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Mary Jane Boutwell is a passionate historian and is thrilled to share stories about “way back when.”