By Paige Norman, Membership Chair
In a memoir written to sons Steve and Fred in November of 2004, and updated July 2010, Dr. Lewis Fink looked back on his life from birth to the present day.
It’s a story of hardship, love, family, and perseverance.
He begins with the account of his birth with the words, “I thought I would put down some of my history while I am still quite alert and having minimal handicaps.”
He was 89 at the time―still 13 years away from his passing in 2017.
"I believe the most important part of my life was my education and how it lead to my occupation later in life as a physician in general practice.”
-Dr. Lewis Fink
Lewis Darwin Fink was born February 11, 1915, the second child of Alvin Max and Hattie (Heller) Fink in Hitchcock, South Dakota. His older sister, Helen, was born in February 1913, followed by a brother, Lester, December 1916, and sister Shirley in 1919. When grandfather Louis Fink passed away in December 1914, he gave each of his children a section of the original homestead, and the Alvin Fink family moved to a 240-acre parcel in Wymore, Nebraska when Lewis was three years old.
The walk to school was about two and a half miles, through the fields and crossing a stream with no bridge. He remembers carrying his lunch to elementary school, and attending classes in a two-room building with a furnace in the basement. The school building wasn’t heated on weekends, sometimes it would be so cold the ink would be frozen when they came to school on Monday. Bathrooms were outside, there was no washroom, and a teacher might have two to three classes of students to teach.
Students coming from the “country schools” had to pass a written entrance exam to qualify to attend junior and senior high schools. Junior high classes included lessons for planes, drawknives, and saws; but no mechanic or auto shop, as many people did not own a car. Lew enjoyed Latin, math, and science classes, taking botany, chemistry, algebra, and geometry in high school. Burlington Railroad was the major employer in the area, since Wymore was the Division Point between Denver, Colorado and Kansas City, Missouri.
His first car was a used Ford Model T his dad purchased when Lewis was 15 years old. He drove his siblings to school on a rutted dirt road in snow, ice, and mud. To earn money, he and his brother, Lee, trapped muskrats and sold the pelts for $1.00 each. He recalls gas was about .05 cents a gallon, corn sold for .03 cents a bushel, and a farm wage was about $1.00 for 10 hours.
After graduating from high school in 1933, Lewis wasn’t drawn to farming like his brother. He was interested in becoming a doctor. At his father’s recommendation, he applied to the University of Nebraska as a pharmacy student; a less expensive four-year program. Classes were difficult, and living conditions were hard, as the country had barely recovered from The Great Depression. Since there was no dormitory for men, he and two other boys from Wymore stayed together, first at the YMCA, and then renting a one-room apartment.
During his sophomore year, his friends had failed out of their classes and returned home, so he rented a room at a private residence two miles from school. He completed his BS in Pharmacy in 1937, graduating in the top 10 percent of the class and was awarded the Lehn and Fink Inc. Medal for the Advancement of Pharmaceutical Science from the University of Nebraska. This prestigious award was bestowed at various universities to the graduating pharmacy student with the highest grade point average each year.
To take the state board for a Pharmacy license, applicants had to work in a pharmacy for a minimum of one year. Lewis was offered a job in Northern Nebraska, but chose to stay at the University of Nebraska and took a teaching fellowship for $50 per month, which allowed him to continue his studies and receive his Master of Science degree in both Pharmacology and Physiology in 1939.
Transferring to the University of Minnesota in 1939, he worked toward his PhD and held a job as a teaching assistant in the Pharmacology Department, working with student nurses. He completed his PhD in 1944 and began teaching pharmacology at Marquette Medical School in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where he remained until June of 1949.
In the summer of 1943, the newly minted Dr. Fink met Catherine Stevens (“Cay”), through a blind date set up by her sorority sister. Cay was a University of Minnesota graduate in their Recreational Education program, on staff with Girl Scouts in Minneapolis. Their first date was to the Aqua Follies, driving up in a 1929 two-door DeSoto Sedan. Gas was rationed, and Lew was living on the $60 a month he made teaching, so their dates consisted of hiking, bass fishing, and dancing. Lewis recalled he couldn’t afford an engagement ring when the time came to propose, so he donated blood – 25 cents per unit – every six weeks and purchased a ring at a wholesale house with a discount from a medical student’s father, who owned a jewelry store. They married August 16, 1944, and began their married life in a one-bedroom apartment in Milwaukee. Food was rationed due to the war; they had the support of Cay’s parents, who lived nearby, and his parents, who sent eggs from Nebraska to help the young couple get by. Cay left her job with the Girl Scouts when Steve was born in 1945. She kept their home life stable while Dr. Fink taught and continued working on his medical degree.
He continued to teach Pharmacology at Marquette Medical School until 1949, then interned at Miller Hospital in St. Paul, Minnesota, leaving September 1950, when he moved his family to Seattle and taught Pharmacology at the medical school there. Son Fred was born in 1951.
The Selective Training And Service Act of 1940 required that all men ages 21 to 36 register for the draft. Deferments were allowed based on dependency and occupation; medical students fell under the occupational deferment guidelines. Since he was no longer a student, Dr. Fink was drafted in June of 1953 and called into service in September of that year. To earn money between those months, he put his medical degree to work at a salmon cannery in Bristol Bay, Alaska. He began his service at Fort Sam Houston, Texas, but with so many doctors entering the draft, he was offered the choice to transfer to the Air Force for three years, or the Navy for two years. Dr. Fink was offered a teaching position at the US Naval Hospital in Bethesda, Maryland. However, the young family loved the Pacific Northwest, so he was assigned to Tongue Point, Astoria, Oregon, a duty station not listed in the Navy base roster. He served in Oregon until April 1954, then was assigned to the USS Marine Phoenix troop transport ship based in Seattle. The ship made up to nine trips to Korea in a year and, as the only doctor on board a ship with 3,600 troops, he stayed busy with surgeries and general medical complaints. He then was transferred to the Port of Seattle, in charge of examining Merchant Marine staff for sea duty. He was honorably discharged September 1, 1955, and relocated his family to Redmond, Washington to open his first practice.
Redmond was a growing town, adding the Redmond Shopping Square and V&B Grocery, among other businesses. He developed the two-doctor clinic that opened the day he was discharged. Kirkland Hospital, a small, 27-bed hospital operated in Kirkland, but the next closest hospitals were in Seattle (Way, Our Town Redmond, 142).
He met one of his first nurses through Cay and her association with Girl Scouts as a volunteer. Patricia Norman acted as his lab technician, and office manager for a number of years, and the Finks and Normans became lifelong friends, vacationing and spending time together as their children grew. Other nursing staff included Marjorie Mattson and C.E. Belkow.
In 1957, Redmond Derby Days held their annual raffle for a new car. Dr. Fink sold tickets at his office, and bought the last few tickets in his book. When the drawing was called, Dr. Fink had the winning ticket and was presented with a new 1957 Plymouth! (Way, Our Town Redmond, 127)
Dr. Fink retired in 1982, after nearly 30 years as a doctor in Redmond. He supported the
development of both the Overlake Hospital and Evergreen Hospital Districts, partnered with other doctors including Drs. Schneble and Overturf, and was active in Derby Days, Redmond Chamber of Commerce, and the Redmond Lions Club. He volunteered at football and wrestling as the team doctor, taught First Aid to Boy Scouts, and helped organize the first Episcopal Church in Redmond. Cay was active in many roles with the Girl Scouts, PTA, Redmond Business Women, Friends of the Library, and the Redmond Episcopal church.
In March 2015, Dr. Fink received an Honorary Lifetime Membership with Redmond Historical Society, recognizing his 100th birthday and the many contributions he made in the Redmond community. He died on November 11, 2017 at the age of 102.
For more Society member stories, visit www.redmondhistoricalsociety.org
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