My, father, Charles Caldwell Landis, was born near Goshen, Indiana on March 26, 1882. He was the oldest of six children born to Henry Beecher and Mary Elizabeth Caldwell. At about 5 months of age, his parents moved to Lone Elm, Kansas, where my father’s grandmother’s parents gave each of his children a section of land, and a completed-equipped farm as a wedding gift.
In 1893, the family moved again to Battle Creek, Michigan, the headquarters of the Seventh-day Adventist Church at that time. Here my grandfather took the nursing course. As good SDA the family was caught up in outreach activities of the church, one of which at that time was a concern for the South, and the fact that there had not been much missionary work done in that area. Consequently, in 1897 their family moved again to Birmingham, Alabama, where grandpa operated treatment rooms for several years. In 1902, Grandpa moved the family to Nashville, Tennessee where he was connected with a health food company.
My father’s uncle, Amos Landis, was an M.D. here in Chico and he encouraged my father to come west to do construction work in the summers while he attended school in the east during the winter. My father wanted to be a physician, so he attended a new Adventist college at Healdsburg, California. He applied for admission to attend George Washington University in Washington, D.C. He took his training there and he graduated in 1912. While in training, he met a young lady in the nursing class by the name of Edna Charlotte Saxby. She earned her RN in 1910, and they married on June 20, 1912. She was a Vermont girl, and had never been west, so the honeymoon was the trip across this great country.
My parents went to St. Helena, California where Dad practiced under Dr. Thomason, for a year in surgery. This equipped him for his later service in China, where he did much surgery. My sister was born on March 27, 1913 in St. Helena, California. She was named Ethna Byrdena Landis. They moved north to Chico and set up housekeeping and opened an office in 1913-916. By this time, Dad’s parents had moved out here, and had built a large home on Eighth Avenue. They also had rice land south of town, near Richvale. This home became a gathering place for many relatives on holidays and vacations. On August 31, 1915, they had a son and they named Frederick Saxby Landis. About then, the General Conference invited my parents to go to Shanghai, China. This was the year he arranged for passports, health exams, inoculations for the two children and themselves. They finally packed up, tickets arrived, things disposed of, and they one-way ride to the port of San Francisco was started. What a thrill to board a big ship and said west. Dad’s brother Lloyd and wife Helen and children were there to see them off, as well as many others.
When they arrived in Shanghai, they searched for a place to live, as well as a place to practice medicine. Dad started seeing patients at the Red Cross Hospital, and they both took a year of language study. It was a strange sounding language, in a strange land.
Dad and Mother started a nursing class to supply the need for nurses in the hospital.
While there, Dad purchased the land and was instrumental in founding the 300-bed SDA Shanghai Sanitarium and Hospital.
The plan in coming to China was to establish a hospital in Shanghai. This was in Dad’s mind all the while he was treating patients. One important patient he had was Wu Ting Fang. He was appointed to be ambassador to the United States and he wanted our family to move into his home while he was over in America. His estate was about fourteen acres, with a very large two-storey house. This was to include many servants, maids, gardeners, chauffeurs, etc. They “came with the place.” I recall my Chinese Amah. I was brought up on both languages until we were aboard the ship to come home. My sister, brother, and I decided we would not say a word of Chinese, so we would not be taken for Chinese. (We all had blue eyes, very fair skin, and Fred and I had red hair). We lost any Chinese language we ever knew.
I was born March 12, 1920, at the Red Cross Hospital in Shanghai. I remember hearing that my folks and other relatives there brought table services, sheets, cutlery, blankets, etc., to use at the hospital to get things running as they should. The Quimbys, Shaws, Davenports, Brewers, Carrs were there also. Mrs. Hilliard was in charge of women’s therapy and Mr. Hillard the mens.
Some of the patients my father cared for were very wealthy, but most of them were very poor. One story we remember was when a patient invited our folks to a dinner one evening, and said they would send a car for them. Our folks dressed as for church and were ready at the proper hour. Imagine their surprise to have a Rolls Royce Limousine pull up and to find all the men in tuxedos at the dinner.
In that era, no foreigner drove their own automobile because the streets were filled with people. To make any progress, the Chinese chauffeur drove honking his horn, yelling at the people to get out of the way. Even the slow progress didn’t ward off all accidents. If anyone was hurt, it was no big deal. If it was a foreigner, driving it would be a very big incident with the probability he would be mobbed. So we always used the chauffeur.
I’ve been told about shopping with my mother one day and being taken into a bank. While mother was waited upon, I decided I was tired and wanted to go home. I turned, went out the front doors, down the steps and on down the street. Mother concluded her business and reached for my hand, only to find NO EARL!!! She was horrified and started running down the steps and down the street, asking “Did you see a little re-haired boy?” The people would point and direct her. She finally caught up with me, and with tears of joy, scooped me up in her arms and carried me home.
Another incident that occurred in Shanghai was a wild plan for a trip to America. While adults were busy elsewhere, my sister, my brother and a friend of the family decided they were going back to Chico to see their grandparents. They all packed little bags, went out front, hailed a rickshaw, and directed him to the docks. He took them as they asked, and let them off where a steamship was preparing to sail for the United States of America. They went up the ramp and found a good spot along the rail, and waited for the ship to leave. About this time, our parents discovered suitcases missing, as well as three children. (My sister was a mature 9 year-old). Our parents know the children had heard some missionaries were sailing that day so they called their chauffeur and rushed to the docks minutes before sailing time, to see three kids peering between the rails. They were lovingly escorted home.
We had a comfortable two-storey granite house before we moved into Wu Ting Fang’s home. One day a coolie was pulling a rickshaw in his bare feet and stepped on a sharp piece of glass right in front of our home. He came to our door bleeding profusely. Mother opened the door and saw the poor bleeding man and invited him in. She took him up the stairs to the bathroom to give him first aid. She cleaned the wound and dressed it. I can still remember the bloody mess he made going up the stairs. After she cleaned up the foot, she directed him to the Red Cross Hospital where my father took care of him. In this home, I can still remember the Siberian winds howling around the house making me afraid at night.
In this same house, some of the silverware started disappearing, little by little. Knowing the Oriental mind by then, Dad decided to approach the situation with praise and cunning. So he took the cook aside and told him he would know just how to find the guilty party, and get the silverware back. Dad praised the cook and asked him to keep his eyes open. I worked!! The silverware started to come back, and the cook saved face.
Mother and the three children returned to the United States of America in 1923, and father returned in 1924. My father joined the staff at Washington Sanitarium, Washington, D.C. for a short time. We had a home at the bottom of a hill. I remember sliding down on my little red sled. Then he went to Glendale Sanitarium before going to St. Helena where he was the Medical Director. We lived just above the Sanitarium, where we got acquainted with Mrs. White’s son, Willie. My father and Willie spend may hours at Elmshaven studying about opening self-supporting medical work in the cities. About then, elder Roberts of the Northern California Conference asked Dad to move to the Bay Area and start up self-supporting work in San Francisco. He found an office in a 3-storey building at 620 O’Farrel Street. He even started a vegetarian cafeteria about 1927 that had a seating capacity of 200 people. Later he volunteered his services at a little clinic at the Capp Street Church. My brother Fred was baptized at this church. The Great Depression in 1929 stopped all eating out or seeing a physician. So he closed the cafeteria as well as the dispensary at the Capp Street Church. He consolidated his assets and moved to 450 Sutter Street. I remember so clearly making little paper airplanes and sailing them out the 24thstorey of Dad’s office and watching them twist and turn on the way to the street far below, or the roof tops of some of the other buildings. Dad assumed all the debts of the other two places and worked on paying them for the next ten years. From 1930 to 1934 he did private practice with Dr. Neuman. Dad and Mother were concerned for their family, living in San Mateo and driving back and forth to San Francisco with three children at home alone. Fred and Byrdena were in the Academy at this point. Finances were so tight I remember picking wild mustard greens to cook for supper. Some times we would have soup of hot water flavored with nucoa and salt. Or perhaps it would be shredded wheat biscuits dipped in hot water and a dab of nucoa on top.
There was an opening in Chico when two doctors were killed in an automobile accident. We had no money available to move, so my folks prayed about it.
If it was the Lord’s will that they move up country, to please make it possible. The next morning when Dad walked into his office, Dr. Deuman said, “Charles, how would you like to sell your practice?” Dad knew his payer was answered. So the funds were available to move. He found an office at the crossroads of Chico, Third and Main Street. They did enjoy associations with parents and family.
Some time before medical school, my father, and his brother, Lloyd and Jim Webster build a house for their parents at 180 East Eighth Avenue. This became the family home where relatives gathered and children were sent in the summer time to be “taught” to work. Grandmother believed children should work, as “idle hands were the devils work shop.” So many cousins spent their summers with the “little general.”
My brother Fred and I were sent to Lodi Academy in 1935, Fred left unceremoniously. My folks took care of the grandparents until Grandfather died in 1934 and Grandmother in 1936.
My father had a problem with the only hospital in town, where no one but Dr. Enloe was allowed surgical privileges. So Dad turned his parents’ home into a small hospital. World War II started and it was very difficult to get nurses and the rest of the help a hospital needed. So Dr. Enloe was having a hard time staffing his hospital also. Therefore, he guaranteed surgical privileges in exchange for Dad to close down his smaller hospital. The folks turned it into offices for Doctors, with a lab and several suites.
Because of his studies on nutrition and his belief that patients would regain and maintain better health on organically-grown foods, he decided a hospital was a necessity. He searched for a good site and finally found 39 acres in Paradise, California. This was about 25 miles from Chico on the beautiful Feather River Canyon. He inspired many others with his enthusiasm. He had plans drawn up. Architects worked. Many work bees were held at the location, materials were donated, ground was cleared, soil was analyzed and correct amount of minerals in which to plant the fruit trees, vines, and all growing things, in order to feed the patients proper nutrition. The great day of opening arrived. Beds were in place, flowers arranged, nurses were on duty, the surgery suite in readiness, and the patients came. It was a small beginning, but it had grown into a hundred and fifty bed hospital, the only one in Paradise. This is truly a memorial to one man’s vision and concern for his fellow man.
By 1953, my father was having heart problems. I had finished medicine and knew I must return to Chico. We moved our family up in September, 1953.
During their life in Chico, my mother was the President of the California Medical Society Auxiliary from 1940 to 1942.Also the President of the W.C.T.U.The Northern California Dorcas Society was presided over by her for several years.I didn’t get to practice long with my father.He first gave up his surgery and then cut back on the hours he would see patients.By the winter of 1957, he had lost weight and was so cold.He and mother decided to take their travel trailer and go to Palm Springs.He was in congestive failure and Mother knew she should get him to a hospital.She took him to Loma Linda.On March 10, 1958, he died of congestive heart failure.The funeral was in Chico at the Seventh-day Adventist Church at 7thand Normal.The Church as packed as family, relatives, patients and friends came to give their last salute to the learned physician.He was buried in Paradise, California, a fitting place to await the call of our Redeemer.