Dr. Joe packs bags, leaves cloudy future
By SHARON KERR Staff Writer

Newsboy photo/Sharon Kerr DIANE HOUGH, Jon Wolfford and Lisa McDonald help load Dr. Joe Dickerson's personal belongings into a trailer Wednesday, April 30.

No one who has been to Dr. Joe's office at Dickerson Memorial Hospital would recognize it now; it's as bare as Mother Hubbard's cupboard.

Gone are all the photos of World War II planes and other mementos of a long career. Dickerson graduated medical school just as the war started, served as a pilot, and then returned to Jasper and began his medical practice in 1948.

Sixty years later, he could still say he was practicing medicine just as he intended, but things are changing at the hospital he built and named in honor of his wife, Mary Dickerson.

For the last six years, Dickerson has lived at the hospital, but two weeks ago his family moved him to a house in Jasper that was his mother's home and is now his daughter's. Last Wednesday, April 30, family and employees were helping pack his personal belongings from the Jasper Clinic offices at the hospital.

Hospital administrator John Tatum says that was all the family's decision, but Dr. Joe had a few things he wanted to say about the current administrators.

"When Mr. Wedekind (DMH owner Larry Wedekind) took over the hospital in 2001, we had a beautiful relationship," Dr. Joe said. "I told him repeatedly that I was here until the sheriff came or my good Lord came, and I have reiterated that every month for five years.

Dr. Joe said in that five years, he spent seven days a week, 24 hours a day, with only a a few days off.

Twice he left for continuing medical education in Galveston and The Woodlands, but only three nights each time. Then, he spent a few days at the christening of the George Bush aircraft carrier, and to be honored for original Biblical archeological research in the Sinai in 1980 and 1990.

"I spend half a day each week on church activities, but otherwise I essentially have had no social life, no contact with family or other activities at all except when my family visited me in this hospital," Dr. Joe said.

He explained his dedication to the hospital, and said his relationship with administrators remained warm until two years ago.

"Mr. Wedekind presented to the staff that the hospital was having a bad time and he asked for tolerance and cooperation," Dr. Joe said.

"This went on for an extended period of time until I realized we were being manipulated and I called a screaming halt. I advised Mr. Tatum and Mr. Wedekind that there is basically always a conflict between the employer and employee where the employer wants to pay less and the employee wants more."

At first they worked out a compromise that Dr. Joe hoped would allow them to carry on, but employee complaints about not being paid or paychecks that weren't honored mounted up.

"I informed Mr. Wedekind and Mr. Tatum that what they were doing was called slavery, and it ended in 1865 after a bloody war and the death of President Abraham Lincoln," Dr. Joe said.

"After five years of harmony I became a terrorist- and you can spell that with a capitol 'T"- and they turned on me, giving me no credit for the loyalties I displayed for five years," Dr. Joe said.

"I've moved out and am living in my mother's old home with my daughter. I am no longer a resident as of April 23. I have other homes I have owned for 40 or 50 years," Dr. Joe said.

As to the future, Dr. Joe said, "I don't know where I'll be. My future is nebulous." (cloudy, uncertain)

His granddaughter Tracie Wolfford, who is an LVN and was his office manager until recently, reminded Dr. Joe, "You have always said you would practice medicine until God calls you home."

"Well, if somebody takes over immediately, I will stay here and carry on," Dr. Joe said, but then he added, "I'm 93 years old and tired."