This week, we will learn about a little boy who was born in Kettle Hollow in the Mayberry community of Patrick County, Virginia and how he made the world a much better place. Roy Oliver Yeatts was born to Charles Tobias Yeatts and Susan Stella Barnard on the second of August 1900; Roy was the oldest child born to the couple. Next week, we will learn more about Roy’s parents and siblings and how they went from Kettle Hollow, which is about one-fourth mile from Mayberry Trading Post all the way to Glasgow, Montana.
Roy attended Montana State College in Bozeman during the summers of 1918 and 1919 while also working as a custodian and at a radio company. While attending college in Montana, Roy met Miss Helen Hambley, who was teaching school in Saco. Helen grew up on a farm in Michigan, the third of eight children. She trained as a schoolteacher and taught history, math, and French for several years.
In 1924, while Roy was attending medical school, Helen embarked on a new career as a nurse, receiving her training at Loma Linda, California. Roy attended the University of Southern California at Los Angeles and spent half a year at the University of California at Berkeley. In a 1984 interview with Tootsie Cassell Pilson, Dr. Yeatts stated, “While in Los Angeles, I worked in two furniture factories to have money to eat. This was during the depression years. In 1927 I began medical school. While there we had what was called a co-op plan. This plan included going to school for two months and then working in medical work, alternating months for two years. This school was known as the College of Medical Evangelists and is now known as the Loma-Linda University School of Medicine.”
On the first of August 1927 in Los Angeles, California, Roy and Helen were married and the young couple began their life together working as nurses while Roy completed his medical degree. Roy and Helen were blessed with a son, Francis Oliver, on the tenth of October 1928, followed by a daughter, Merna Lenore, on the 20th of September 1934. Upon graduation from medical school in 1934, Dr. Yeatts went into private practice in San Mateo, California. In 1936, Dr. Yeatts moved his wife and children to New Orleans, Louisiana where he set up his medical practice and worked as the medical director of a hospital. Then, everything changed on December 7th, 1941.
Dr. Yeatts enlisted in the United States Army on the 2nd of August 1942 (his 42nd birthday) and served for nearly four years as an Army doctor before being discharged on the 3rd of March 1946. After the war was over. Dr. Yeatts moved his family to the town of Hardin in Big Horn County, Montana where he set up his new medical practice. In 1955, after the Yeatts children were grown, Dr. and Mrs. Yeatts began a selfless journey as medical missionaries. I would like to share some excerpts from numerous newspaper articles about their tireless, heroic work. The first one is from the Missoulian, dated March 27th, 1960, “Word has been received that Dr. and Mrs. Roy O. Yeatts have returned from the western highlands of New Guinea and are now visiting relatives in Washington. Dr. Yeatts is medical director of the Mt. Hagen and Hatzfeld Haven Hansenide colonies and is on furlough for one year in the United States after six years of service in New Guinea. Mrs. Yeatts has been nursing and teaching in New Guinea.”
From the Phillips County News, dated July 7th, 1960, “Dr. and Mrs. Roy O. Yeatts are now enroute to Alaska to visit their daughter and will return to New Guinea next March to set up a 100-bed hospital on frontier government-controlled territory.”
The following is an update from the Ravalli Republic, dated May 1st, 1962, of how things were going when they returned to New Guinea, “Dr. and Mrs. Roy O. Yeatts are attending thousands of patients, mostly natives but many government employees as well as many missionaries of various denominations. While the 100-bed hospital is still unfinished, the doctor treats many patients outdoors.”
From the Missoulian, dated March 30th, 1963, “Superintendent of the Sabbath School of the Missoula Seventh-Day Adventist Church announced that funds were given for work in New Guinea, going toward the construction of the new Sapas Hospital in the Wabag Valley. Dr. Roy O. Yeatts, a missionary from Montana, is superintendent of the hospital. He reports that there is much leprosy (Hansen’s disease) in the area and up to 150 persons with various ailments receive care each day. The mission is situated at an elevation of 7,000 feet, overlooking the valley and the area is heavily populated, the doctor states.”
Dr. and Mrs. Roy O. Yeatts served as medical missionaries in New Guinea from 1955 until 1966. From 1967 to 1976, the couple served short relief terms in Africa, serving in Nigeria, Ghana, Sierra Leone, and Malawi and Zambia with their work centered at the Yuka Hospital.
In 1976, Dr. and Mrs. Yeatts retired and returned to the land of his birth in Meadows of Dan. Although Helen was born in Michigan, she fit right in and was voted Mother of the Year in 1984 by the Meadows of Dan Extension Homemakers Club. Dr. Yeatts stayed busy in the Meadows of Dan Ruritans and the Patrick County Ministerial Association. The couple were very active members of the local Seventh-Day Adventist Church.
In 1988, when Dr. Yeatts was eighty-eight years old, and Mrs. Yeatts was eighty-five, they decided it might be best to move nearer to at least one of their children. Their daughter, Merna, who was a registered nurse and licensed pilot was serving in Brazil as a missionary but their son, Francis worked for the Food and Drug Administration in Washington State. Dr. And Mrs. Yeatts moved to Walla Walla, Washington where Dr. Yeatts passed away from pneumonia at the home of his son on February 13th, 1989. Mrs. Yeatts lived for eleven more years, passing away at the age of ninety-eight years old in the land of her birth in Berrien Springs, Michigan.
I was not fortunate enough to know Dr. and Mrs. Yeatts personally, but I reached out to Gerry Little who spent the summer of 1980 with them in Meadows of Dan. The following memories are shared by Mr. Little, “my college buddy and I were privileged to live with Mr. and Mrs. Roy and Helen Yeatts during the summer of 1980 when I was nineteen, and my buddy, Jim, was twenty-two. They opened their home to us, free of charge, and fed us that entire summer, which included fresh fruits and vegetables from their garden that they tended to daily. They were not necessarily expected to feed us but were such loving and kind people who had retired to Meadows of Dan, Virginia, following a lifetime of providing medical missionary services to the poor overseas. Meadows of Dan was Dr. Yeatt’s hometown, a very small but beautiful, mountainous community located just off the Blue Ridge Parkway in southwest Virginia. It was a bit of a culture shock for this, then, nineteen-year-old young man who was from Alexandria, Virginia, right next to Washington, DC, and a whole, different world! I quickly adjusted to the peace and tranquility of the area but couldn’t let go of my habit of locking my car! Dr Yeatts and his wife were very devoted to their tiny Seventh day Adventist church and were looked up to as leaders even at their advanced age of about eighty years old at the time. My buddy and I spent the summer selling Christian literature door to door and almost always received a warm welcome even from those uninterested in our products. It was my first time living so far from home and a wonderful experience that I shall never forget! My buddy now lives in Arkansas and feels the same way. We hope to eventually return to the area and visit.”
Thank you so much to Gerry Little for sharing the above comments and to Gerry Yeatts Scardo for reaching out to me to share information about her cousin, Dr. Roy Oliver Yeatts. Next week, we will look at Roy’s parents and siblings and follow their journey from Mayberry to Montana. Woody may be reached at rockcastlecreek1@gmail.com or (276) 692-9626.
