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In 1946, Dr. Edwin Eastham opened a small office across the street from Tony’s Grocery Store in Front Royal. The office is still there and so is Dr. Eastham, practicing medicine as he has for 40 years. Though he still makes house calls now and then, he has not delivered a baby in 20 years.
Before the founding of the hospitals in Warrenton and Warren County, most of the deliveries in Rappahannock County were home deliveries and in those days Eastham made house calls “all the time.”
“I must have delivered 500 babies,” Eastham guesses. “No, make that closer to 1,000 babies. ”
In addition to home deliveries, Eastham was frequently called out to handle medical emergencies. “I once sewed up Arthur Miller’s horse after it had gashed itself on a stake” Eastham recalls. “The horse got better but I don’t claim to be a veterinarian.” terinarian.”
Because house calls were an indispensable part of life then, Eastham got to know the gravel roads and hidden driveways to virtually every home in the county. But then, according to Eastham, the government health services established during the 60’s “changed everything.”
“People had to go to hospitals to receive the medical care provided by the government,” says Eastham. “Patients with benefits could be treated in hospital beds rather than in their own homes. After Medicaid, I did a lot less driving around.”
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