the competing dentists in town was a man we affectionately referred to as “Old” Dr. French—although he was no older than Father. Old Dr. French was a jolly man carrying a few too many pounds around the middle. He had a full allocation of white hair, which he wore on the top of his head like a mop and on his face in the form of friendly mutton chops. Enjoying the company of children as he did, he had no qualms keeping them in his waiting room for as long as it took for him to see them in the ordinary course. Erupting cries from that room were usually silenced by a lollipop. At the end of the visit, all minor patients were issued a coupon redeemable for one ice cream cone at the nearby dairy.
These practices, as Father critically pointed out, by inducing further tooth decay, created many more opportunities for the children to see Old Dr. French. This mattered not to the children, who adored him. Sometimes, on becoming newly acquainted with me and learning that my father was one of the town’s dentists, a child’s face would light up. My negative response to their next question as to whether my father was Old Dr. French sometimes produced an equal amount of disappointment on both our parts.
Amounts payable for Father’s professional services were calculated prior to any procedure being performed, based on a schedule of fees also posted on a wall in the waiting room. Payment was due on provision of services, in cash or in kind. No statements of services rendered were prepared, as there were no insurers or any other third parties that required any such report. Father did maintain a ledger of patients indebted to him, given that, despite the signage, many did not pay on provision of his services.
The status Father attached to his profession compensated for what was often a deficiency in cash. Like Dr. Heggie, my father was often paid for his services in kind. In that respect, our family was very fortunate for the prodigiously soft teeth and poor oral hygiene of some of Brampton’s best merchants and farmers. Generally, their accounts were settled over time with deliveries to our back door of farm-fresh eggs and fine cuts of meat. True, Mother did not have the luxury as some wives did of being able to plan the next day’s main course meal, but we tried to make spontaneity a virtue.
We all knew when the Robertson family visited Father. It was generally a half-day affair with the parents, the elderly grandparents, and their growing brood of children. The decreasing number of teeth in the older generation was compensated for by the increasing number in the younger. Their signature form of payment was carrots. In the weeks following their visits, Mother served fresh-cut carrots for snacks, sliced, boiled carrots at dinner (as we called our midday meal), creamed carrots at tea (as we called our evening meal), and carrot soup and cake at both of those meals. Mother knew that the goods delivered to us were as good as money if they were used properly, and she never let them go to waste.
One of the many desirable aspects of the profession, according to Father, was the ability to expound upon one’s political views without a contrary argument being waged. He delighted in telling us how he waited until a man’s mouth was fully pried open, with one or more devices inside it, to “discuss” the latest issues before the town council, the elementary or high school board, the provincial legislature or the Dominion parliament. His greatest pleasure arose when the mouth so engaged was that of a Liberal or some other person who took a position opposite to Father’s.
From the earliest days of his childhood, it was made clear to my brother Jim that he would enter the profession of dentistry and join Father’s practice. My cousin John was spared the early presumption in this respect, but whenever the subject of John’s future was raised in the absence of his father, my Uncle James, Father always encouraged John to join Jim in this pursuit. Father had great visions for expanding his practice to include both Jim and John, and as my Aunt Rose, John’s mother, never dissuaded her brother from making these overtures, it was understood that she shared my father’s vision.
Father relished every opportunity he had to expound that view. Thus, the arrival at our door of Uncle James’s upstairs tenant while we enjoyed our 1908 New Year’s Day dinner was not unwelcome to Father. Uncle James was barely out the door to attend to the burst pipes in his building when Father began. “It is a profession, boys. That is what sets it apart from nearly every other endeavour. No offence to your husband, Rose,” Father added for the benefit of his sister, whose demeanour at the table made it clear that none was taken, “but anyone with a little capital can be a merchant. He might even be a successful merchant—until the next man with a little capital comes along and sets up shop right next to him, and having a newer, cleaner shop with slightly newer goods takes away the business from the first shop owner. Then the second shop owner thrives and the first suffers. Again, I say this meaning no offence to your father, John.”
John, who was then eight years of age, took this insult to his father’s occupation as would any young boy hearing it from his own uncle in the presence of his seemingly complicit mother—with silence rather than rebuttal, with a slight extension of that part of his body already under the table and a contraction of that above it.
“But isn’t the same true of dentistry?” Aunt Lil chimed in. New Year’s Day was one of the two days a year she “graced us with her presence,” as Father would say. “Couldn’t you open a dental clinic and have someone else open one near you? Isn’t that just what Doc Al faced when you set up your clinic down the road from his? And did you not encounter the same experience after Doc Al retired with Doctors Peaker and French, who came to town after your practice was established?”
“But that is my point entirely,” Father replied. “In the years since Doc French and I started practicing dentistry in 1891 until this year, there have been not more than three other dentists in the entire town. Now how many merchants are there in Brampton, boys? Too many to count, obviously. And who knows how many there will be tomorrow? Because all you need to be a merchant is a little money and a modest amount of intelligence, no offence to your father of course, John. To be a dentist you need that same quantity of funds and more, because in addition to the premises you must acquire and equip as any merchant does, you must qualify yourself with years of schooling and you must be blessed with a very steady hand. This would elude most people. But as a result of the efforts of your fathers and your own intellectual and physical gifts, you boys will have the means to be so qualified.”
“You concede, brother,” Aunt Lil replied, “that should young John wish to follow you in this pursuit, it will have been his father’s efforts as a successful merchant that gave him the financial means to do so?”
Father would have had to concede the point, but at that moment Mother was clearing the table and asked him to pass her the turkey platter. He was unusually solicitous in his efforts to assist her that day, gathering for her as well the cranberries, salt, and pepper. With those matters attended to, he resumed.
“Furthermore, and this too cannot be ignored, everyone who has actual teeth or wishes to have fabricated teeth is in need of the services of a dentist. But does everyone require the wares that merchants sell? Pumpkin, please, Mary, and only a bit of cream.” Father didn’t miss dessert, no matter how engrossed he was in a conversation or diatribe. “Of course not. Many a farmer’s wife will make the bread that others will purchase from your father, John and, no offence intended, that wife would likely make it better and at less expense than that made in your father’s bakery.”
With every suggestion to which John was to take no offence, he sank a bit lower in his chair, being very careful all the while not to slouch. While Father was able to make these cutting observations of family and perfect strangers alike over the dinner table, we children were never permitted to slouch.
Aunt Lil interjected again. “That’s true, brother. Everyone should see a dentist, but I recently read that quite a small percentage of Ontarians regularly sees a dentist, and of those that do, some may see a dentist as seldom as once every three or four years. Bread, on the other hand,” Aunt Lil said, being sure to use an example that would raise her nephew up a few inches at the table, “is consumed by everyone every day, and statistics indicate that fewer and fewer Canadians actually bake it themselves. And so the person who may require a tooth to be filled once every two years will have purchased, assuming he consumes a quarter of a loaf of bread a day, over 180 loaves of bread between those two dental visits…”
“That, my dear, sister,” Father