People in Larimore a century ago recognized their veterinarian, Dr. Hermann M. Eisenlohr, by his black derby hat as he came up the street. Figuratively, too, he wore many hats, and was a truly colorful local character.
I can tell you about Dr. Eisenlohr and his place in the community of Larimore only because of—and here I’m climbing onto one of my favorite soapboxes—only because of archives. Let me declare, and illustrate, once again the value of manuscript collections such as those gathered by the Institute for Regional Studies and housed at NDSU Archives. I’m writing today from Mss Collection 23, one of the early ones acquired by the institute in the 1950s.
Eisenlohr was the son (born in 1879) of German immigrants in Iowa who raised him on a farm there until they relocated to a farm in South Dakota. Hermann grew up and travelled back to Iowa to marry his sweetheart Anna Olsen and then took her to a farm near Havana, North Dakota
Upon Anna’s early death Hermann went off to vet school in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Upon achieving his degree he was looking for a place to practice back in North Dakota and heard the vet in Larimore had died. So there he settled, and practiced. He also farmed, kept a livery, and lived in it until his death in 1954. He was active in the associations of his profession and of his community—lodges, church, business, and so on.
And now we come to the colorful part of Dr. Eisenlohr’s profile. According to local historians, he was remarkably dedicated to animals. “He continued with his humanitarian work treating animals, day or night, whenever the call came,” one of them writes. “Sometimes this called for much cooperation on the part of the neighbors and friends when he would go in the ditch.” So, he commonly hired young men to drive him to calls in the country, first by horse-drawn rig, later by automobile.
Eisenlohr was an avid gardener of flowers and vegetables and loved sharing the bounty with his neighbors. He spent untold hours helping to build the Methodist Church in 1913.
In addition to the horses in his livery, he kept a regular menagerie of fowl, goats, dogs, and ponies, on which he gave the town kids rides. He kept a taxidermic collection of freak animals he loved to show off. A great believer in education, he let country kids coming to school in town board horses at his livery for free.
Now, back to the boxes in the archives, they contain two bound volumes bearing the legends, "Livery Record, 1912-1915” and “Livery Record, 1915-1919.” I am immediately struck that in the early twentieth century, the livery business was substantial enough that commercial publishers printed purpose-made ledgers in which to record their transactions.
A few things of note in the livery records: Most of the customers renting rigs and horses were local. This included townsmen renting rigs and listing their destination simply as “Hunting.” Many other times the destination listed was just “County,” meaning someone in town had business, or perhaps personal affairs, to attend to on a farm somewhere. Sometimes a neighboring community is the destination: Arvista, Northwood, Eastgate. Or a school. Or a particular farm. Country doctors commonly rented rigs for rural house calls.
The horses, they all had names: Blacky, Polly, Slim Dick, Jennie, Bailly, Gypsie, Topsy, Clyde, Baldy.
Dr. Eisenlohr knew his horses, and his people. And now we know him, through the archives.
