Born: August 21, 1906, Topeka, Kansas
Died: 1967
Married: Helene
Children: son
In 1929 both Marshall McClintock and Mrs. M. M. McClintock were examined by physicians in Saranac Lake. Mrs. McClintock was seen by Lawrason Brown on June 24. She was 23, living at 16 Baker Street; former address, Cleveland, Ohio, Advanced T.B. was present. Marshall McClintock was at Trudeau where he was seen by Dr. Heise on October 21. Also 23, he had previously lived at 90 Riverside Drive. His occupation was Publisher. T.B. appeared to be incipient or absent.
By 1930 McClintock was working as a free lance author, living as a lodger in the rented home of Charles A. Smart, a freelance editor, on Charles Street in Manhattan. We Take to Bed, the chronicle of his family's experiences in Saranac Lake, was published in 1931.
Rauner Special Collections Library, Dartmouth Library, on line
Biography
Marshall "Mike" McClintock was born on August 21, 1906 in Topeka, Kansas. He graduated from Dartmouth College in 1926, after which he became a clerk, sales manager and children's and juvenile book editor. McClintock published numerous books and was also an uncredited writer of several Gold Key publications in the 50s and 60s. He also wrote various scripts for Dr. Solar, Twilight Zone, Phantom and Man from U.N.C.L.E. Through his career Marshall McClintock used various pen names like: Gregory Duncan, Marshall Mac Clintock, Douglas Marshall, Mike McClintock, and William Starret. His publications include "How to Build and Operate a Model Railroad," "A Fly Went By," "The Story of New England" and "Millions of Books-The Story of Your Library." He died in 1967.
From the Dedicatory Foreword in We Take to Bed:
. . .
This book is dedicated to that town, and that sanitarium, and that hospital, to a certain doctor, to a nurse superintendent, to four sisters, to the nurse of one of them, to a woman philanthropist, to two aunts, to a man and his wife running a cottage, to two publishers and a broker, to a landlord, to a woman caring for a certain boy, to a tremendous figure in research, to a few dying and recuperating lungers, and to nurses, taxi-drivers, and a few relatives and several friends.
And this book is dedicated to Helene.
Marshall McClintock in bed. Journal of the Outdoor Life, May 1935.
Historic Saranac Lake Collection, 2006.1.32.Finding Friendship--And More--In Saranac
By Marshall McClintock
Journal of the Outdoor Life: Saranac Lake Special Number, May, 1935
O to your dictionaries and reference books and try to learn what a friend is. Read essays, poems, and listen to speeches on friendship. You'll find as many definitions as there are individuals- -or friends. Better by far Better by far to go to Saranac and learn by experience, by actual contact, what friends are.
I do not know a good definition of the word, but I have friends. Are they those who stick by through thick and thin? Not necessarily. I have many friends who did nothing for me when I was in trouble, but they are none the less friends. They are close to me in other ways, through community of interests perhaps. Are friends those whom you esteem and respect? Maybe, but not always.
When my wife and I were told that we both had Tb., we had no money, little confidence in the goodness of mankind, but great confidence that we could see through our troubles. We were twenty-two years old and had a baby of ten months. I suppose we might be called the subjects of a great tragedy, but it never occurred to us in that light. We were far too busy packing and moving, making plans, traveling to Saranac, getting settled there, as I showed in my book "We Take to Bed."
Then came the let-down. We were in strange surroundings, tackling a new life, and we were alone. Our friends--they were left far behind. What did we find in Saranac to help us along? Friends? Again I run against the stone wall of no definition of the word. But I can tell you what I found and you may judge.
First, before we knew people, we made the acquaintance of a clean air that invaded our lungs with the freshness of green leaves and pine needles and clear waters of lakes. We received the bow of several mountains, some old and mellowed and green, others big and rough and hearty. After the grey, scared sparrows of city streets, the sight of dozens of birds, bright and swift, in the trees beside our porches, dropping cherry pits on the tin roof with the delight of little kids throwing stones in puddles-this brought us closer to home in Saranac. These things, natural things, possessed all the qualifications of every definition of that word, friend.
Then--people. A doctor who felt his patients' troubles so deeply that he could not show it except in gruff acts of help and understanding which he tried to make appear to come from someone else. Without a word of solicitation that might make one feel inferior, begging, he obtained a free ultra-violet lamp, sent a bag of buckshot for my wife so we wouldn't have to buy it, helped us find our way to institutions where we could live and cure more cheaply, and when we struck the rock bottom of finances, loaned us money and neglected sending a bill. Without him we could not have stayed on in Saranac, could not have stuck by the cure. Why did he help us? Because he liked us? Because he was a friend? I do not think so. Such considerations did not enter into his help of patients.
Was he a friend? Well, we had little in com- We never mentioned personal matters with him. Our relationship remained always formal, that of the physician and his patient. He called once every two weeks and asked his questions, gave his advice, went his way. But he always noted little things, kept account without our knowing it of our financial condition, and continually helped us without a word, rushing off when we tried to thank him.
I don't know if he liked us. I hope he did, for we would be very proud to be liked by such a man. I know that he has also helped patients whom he did not like, whose actions he disapproved of, who disobeyed his instructions. Was he a friend of those persons? I cannot answer. I know one thing. He possessed a depth of feeling for human things, a warmth of sympathy for all persons in trouble, and an understanding method of giving aid such as I have never encountered in another person anywhere.
And other doctors in the town--we met many of them. They were all different. Some we were informal with, others we dealt with but never even saw. One who gave my wife pneumothorax treatments was almost heartbroken when he hurt her slightly. Another was so good with our boy Marco that, even though he had to pierce an eardrum, he made Marco beam and smile at the mere sound of the word "doctor." Another who saw Marco through colds and fevers and bad spells wrote me letters, telephoned reports and has never yet sent me a bill.
From other patients we heard of doctors who loaned money, sent no bills, paid room rent, bought clothing for their patients. Were these men friends? Again, I don't know. But I know that in them was a quality found rarely in the world, but found almost universally in Saranac, that quality of warm, kindred sympathy for other humans.
What about the other people in Saranac? Did we find friends among them? I sit back and think of them and they seem far away. We are back in the world again now. I go to work every day and come home in the evening to my own house and find my wife and boy there. And Saranac is far away. But I can remember so many casual acquaintances so vividly! Back in the world I run into taxi-drivers and clerks and business men and shop girls and they are forgotten at once. But I can still remember with pleasure three or four taxi-drivers in Saranac who always asked about my baby and wife when I saw them, who told me about their relapses, pleurisy, coughs. I remember the exhilarating if profane talks with the driver of the bus to Trudeau and I can see the anxiety with which the waitress at my table in Trudeau urged me to eat a big meal on the morning we were weighed. Nurses, expressman, delivery boys, postmaster-why do I still feel close to them that I knew in Saranac?
Again I know but one answer. They had feelings, feelings that seem to be undeveloped, latent or killed in most people elsewhere.
To me it seems strange that these should be the circumstances in Saranac. Lungers are strange persons. They are sick and under stress and worried. They must put up with confinement, discouragement, restlessness, helplessness. One might expect bitterness, neurosis, psychosis, fits, temperament, jealousy, vengeful feelings of malice and enmity towards the world and all the people in it. But no, there in Saranac there is depth of sympathy and breadth of kinship.
There are more, many more, that we remember in Saranac. Can we ever forget any one person we so much as spoke to there? But I still don't know if I really made friends in Saranac.
What about the head of a hospital? It was she, the sole support of the institution, who made it possible for my wife to have a free bed for ten weeks, who gave us presents and helped in many ways. But she, I know, did not approve of us. To her we were bad examples of the new generation and to us she was old-fashioned. Our thoughts and points of view were as far apart as the two poles and we could never really know each other. Just because I say that I think her old-fashioned, do not believe that I am not grateful for what she did for us. I am not considering the possibility of there being perfect people in Saranac or anywhere else. I am not even sure, you know, that I can call her a friend. But I do know this. She may condemn us with vehemence and I may oppose her views on certain matters, but I never will forget her as long as I live. There will always be very deep down in me a feeling of warmth when I think of her. She may not be a friend of mine, but I will remember her when present friends are names that I cannot even recall. For she has qualities that many friends lack, that are far more rare and worthy than congeniality or community of interests.
The superintendent of that same hospital- she disapproved too, no doubt, of the smoking mother and the cursing father. And she told us so. But she gave us money when we were broke, gave bright and cheerful things to my wife, and after she left the hospital continued to call on her, always managing in some way to bring her exhilarating personality into the room when my wife reached a low ebb of depression.
There were landlords--men and women whose living was made from patients. In what other business will you find bills sliding for weeks and weeks, special favors constantly given, actual financial aid often tendered to a customer? You will find these things among the landlords in the cottages of Saranac. They may bawl you out for messing up the room, for making too much noise; they may say unkind things to other patients about you and may think you selfish and ungrateful. But when you are in trouble, something kind is done, something helpful, some little thing that eases the load a bit--and it is the landlord who has done it, without a word, without condescension.
And other patients. Most of them could not help materially since they were all in the same boat.
Of course, there was the man who gave us electric pads and a sweater, the girl who gave us suits for Marco, the nurse who gave blankets and a cure chair, and another who gave my wife a flower now and then. But the others gave smiles and talk and pleasant hours, an artist, a Canadian girl, another artist, a nurse with a relapse, a widow, a flapper, a boy studying to be a priest, an ex-soldier.
There was every kind of person. Some were brilliant, some morons, some beautiful, others ugly, dull, scintillating, natural, affected, conservative and liberal. They never tried to cheer us up, to convince us the world was rosy when we knew things were getting worse. They had cast off the thin coating of Optimism with a capital O and possessed a much more real quality, confidence. We liked some and disliked others. Many were interesting and many were boring. But were any of them friends?
It is futile to continue asking that question. I know a boy there who would swear at his cottage mate, revile him, condemn him, almost hate him. But if the mate threw a hemorrhage or ran out of money or lost ten pounds, there would strike deep into the heart of the other a feeling of sympathy that rips through the comparatively petty emotion of mere friendship and strikes deep into the middle of one's real being.
Friends? You have them at home. They are the ones who forget to write or write letters of sentimental expressions of superficial sympathy that make you groan.
You can find them in any city when you return from Saranac after the cure. They are the ones who will beg you to come out on wild parties, who will call you a wet blanket and a spoiled, lazy child. You will like them, yes. You will have fun with them. and find them congenial, understanding of your opinions and interested in your interests. But they lack something.
What is it? Don't go to your dictionaries for that. Go up to those benign green mountains, the pines, the lakes, the clear clean air. Go up to Saranac and you will find it. It is a quality the world needs far more than it needs friendship, a quality that, despite all other restraining forces, makes a heart go out to a heart in a communion of human feeling.
