Editor’s note: This is another column in Bill Boyd’s new series, “The Way It Was,” about growing up in Marysville. Bill continues to work with the Union County Historical Society to obtain information for his stories.
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Sometime in 1938, I had a tooth that was kind of “touchy.” So my mother took me to see a long-time Marysville dentist, Dr. Nicol. His office was on the second floor of what is known today as the “Liggett Building” at 117 West Fifth Street. He had operated in that location since 1920. Before that, he practiced for years in an office on South Main Street.
When Dr. Nicol examined the tooth, he found a tiny cavity and he began to fill it. My mother asked him if he could give me something to deaden the pain of drilling. He said that wouldn’t be necessary because it was a “baby tooth” and the cavity was very small. That made my mother pretty antsy.
Dr. Nicol must have been right because I don’t remember any pain at all. If it had hurt me, you better believe I would have let him know about it.
Although I don’t remember anything at all about the procedure, I have a vivid memory of the office itself. It was an austere place. When we opened the door from the dimly lit stairway, we stepped into the windowless waiting room. It was even darker than the stairway.
We didn’t have to wait. Dr. Nicol led us into a much lighter room with a window that looked out over Fifth Street. There were two dental chairs in the room, but they looked as different as night and day.
He seated me in the chair on the left. It looked a lot like the dental chairs you see today. It was a black leather chair, with all the bells and whistles that dental chairs have, you know, special lighting, and a place where you can rinse now and then. But it is the other dental chair that I want to tell you about.
I think it must have been the chair that Dr. Nicol used when he opened his practice on South Main Street many years earlier. It was a wooden chair, probably maple or ash. The seat and back were caned in a beautiful pattern that my mother noticed immediately. It looked more like a lawn chair than a dental chair. But the thing I remember most was its drill. It wasn’t an electric drill. It was powered using a treadle that Dr. Nicol operated with his foot.
I thought it was pretty neat that he operated this drill the same way my grandmother operated her sewing machine, by pumping up and down with her foot. I wouldn’t want to get a tooth filled that way.
But I wish I knew where that dental chair is today. I think the Union County Historical Society would love to have it.
Those wishing to contact Bill Boyd can e-mail him at williamboyd514@gmail.com