DR. CHARLES SMITH. CARTER
1878-1959)

“Dr. Carter Day” was celebrated by the people of Bells in 1 November 1956 because of
his years of devoted service to the citizens of this area. During his 58 years of
practicing medicine in the Bells/Savoy/Whitewright area, he delivered more than 3,000
babies, mostly in the home.

He was born near Bells, but grew up near Bonham. After graduating with honors from Bonham
High School, he attended the Georgia College of Eclectic Medicine and Surgery, then
entered the American Medical College, St Louis, MO and Tulane Polyclinic, New Orleans, LA.
He became a deacon in the Baptist Church, a member of the American Medical Association, the
Grayson County Medical Society, the State Board of Medical Examiners, and the Masonic Lodge.

In 1901 Dr. Carter began practicing medicine in Savoy and continued there for twenty-two years.
Then he moved to Whitewright and stayed only a couple of years before moving to Bells in 1926.
At one time, Dr. Carter was one of four doctors in Savoy. Even a small town needed several
doctors because house calls were the accepted method of treatment. This took much of the
doctor’s time as travel was not all that fast.

In 1904, he married Maude Frances Short of Savoy. Their children were Pat, Charles W.
(Charlie), Winnie Belle, and Annie Bess. Pat died young; Charlie married and had three
children; Winnie married W. M. May and had one child, and Ann married M. D. Johnson and
had one child. Grandchildren of Dr. Carter were Judy Ann Johnson, William Carter May,
Charles W. Carter Jr., Sharon Elizabeth Carter, and James Neal Carter. His wife Maude
Carter, who was dedicated to community service, died in June 1931 in Bells. In 1939
Dr. Carter married Ethel Belote.

Charles Smith Carter, the son of James Winston and Sarah Ann (Fitzgerald) Carter, was born
near Bells, Texas, 1 November 1878. His father came to Texas from Missouri in 1871; while
his mother, the daughter of William Patrick and Emily Belle (Downing) Fitzgerald of Ector,
was a native Texan. Dr. Carter’s siblings were Pat, Winston, Nora, and Beryl.

Soon after Dr. Carter began his practice, he was called to the home of a child sick with red
measles. After attending the child, he went by his aunt Nora (Fitzgerald) Bell’s home in Savoy.
There he played with her infant son, Homer Bell. Remembering he had not washed or changed his
clothing, he left immediately saying, “I pray I have not infected this baby.” But he had and
Homer died of red measles a few weeks later. Dr. Carter learned a hard lesson from this
experience. From that time on, he was most particular regarding the spread of diseases. It would
stand to reason that his aunt, who had no other children, would have blamed her nephew for her
child’s death, but she did not. He remained her favorite nephew and was remembered in her will.
I heard that story many times as we were often at Nora Bell’s for Sunday dinner as she was my
mother’s aunt. A big picture of little Homer was on the wall. After Nora Bell died,
Dr. Carter gave me her family Bible and some family pictures.

I remember so many things about “Uncle Doc” as he was a big part of my life as I grew up. He
had a way of walking that was crisp, snappy and unlike any other. All of us children took
his little pink pills, which was actually calomel, and had our sore throats swabbed with a
mercury solution. Both were commonly used by doctors during that period. I remember watching
his mother, Sarah/Sallie Carter, chip ice from a big block of ice in the top of the ice box.
She accidently stabbed her palm and said, “I guess I’ll have to have Charles tend to this. But
when he was a little boy, I soaked his cuts and such in coal oil (kerosine).” At that time,
Dr. Carter was living across the street from the old school and had his office on the main
street in back of the drug store. Later, he built a home on the “Y” with an office in his yard.

When I think of Aunt Sally, Dr. Carter’s mother, I always remember the story I heard so often
about the death of her little son Pat. It seems she just couldn’t get over the death of her
child. She would walk about wringing her hands and saying if only she could see him one more
time and know his body was safe and dry. Finally her husband had the body exhumed for her
to view. When she saw that it was dry and in perfect condition, she was consoled.

Dr. Carter tended my family’s medical needs from coming to our home five miles north of Bells
twice a day for months to dress my younger sister’s burns to draining my lung during a bout
of pneumonia. When my older sister had a bad case of scarlet fever, he cared for her and
ordered a new serum for the other children. My older sister, born in 1922 at Aunt Nora
Bell’s house in Savoy, was delivered by Dr. Carter. This happened because as time for her
birth grew near, my dad would take my mother there each day while he was away from the house.

Around 1930 when Charlie, teenage son of Dr. Carter, was visiting on our farm, a wolf was
killed by one of the men. As the men prepared to kill her litter of pups, Charlie pleaded with
his dad to allow him to have one of them, pointing out that he could keep it in the window of
the drug store, which Dr. Carter ran at that time. It was finally decided he could display
it for a few weeks. Time slipped by and when the pup was about half grown, it escaped the
window. All assumed it had gone back to the wild. But when it became almost impossible for
the people of the Methodist Church (the one that later burned) to tolerate the terrible
odor in their building, the wolf was discovered dead under the building.

Dr. Carter looked forward to our big threshing dinners during hay baling time at the farm.
He enjoyed sitting on the banks of the farm ponds and shooting whatever fowl happened to
come into his range. He took my younger sister and me to our first circus (a very small
traveling show that came to Bells) and bought us Cracker Jacks. As I was growing up, he
would sometimes lecture me on such subjects as dating, morals, and money.

In his declining years, Dr. Carter spent much time in bed. He was the first in Bells to
install an antenna and buy a television set. The reception was poor and the screen was
filled with snow most of the time. None-the-less, he seemed to enjoy it.

This pioneer general practitioner, who was connected to so many lives in the Bells area,
died 9 December 1959 at Bells and is buried at Sunnyside Cemetery at Savoy, TX, next to
the mother of his children, Maude Carter.