U.S. Census figures tell us that based on percentage of population, Kewaunee County's Town of Lincoln is the 4th largest Belgian-American township in the United States today. Most immigration occurred in the late 1850s when the area was originally called GrandLez, named for a place in the Province of Namur, Belgium.
Within 35 years those Town of Lincoln immigrants produced 6 men who would become medical doctors. Why all those doctors? That most are Belgian is not surprising. Lincoln was filled with young immigrants raising large families, a fact reflected in the 1880 Eleventh Census of the United States which counted 1,147 residents in the town's growing population.
One of those doctors, Dr. Edward J. Kerscher, was among the town's most prominent and beloved citizens. Of German descent, he was born there in 1885 and taught school in Euren* before attending medical school. As one held high in regard in both Door and Kewaunee Counties, he was feted at a day in his honor in June 1950. Nearly 25 years later, on March 22, 1974, Wisconsin Assembly passed a Resolution honoring Kerscher on his 89th birthday. Kerscher’s predecessor Dr. LaFortune was practicing in the hamlet of Lincoln in 1887, planning to relocate to Bottkolville (Euren) later in the year. Dr. Kerscher followed him. When Kerscher was honored, it was noted that he spoke German, Belgian and English, but more than likely the others did too.
Green Bay's Bellin Hospital was founded by Dr. Julius Bellin, born in Lincoln in 1870. The father of former Green Bay Mayor Sam Halloin also went from Lincoln to make a mark on Green Bay. Records say Dr. Louis Halloin was born in Lincoln Town, though other records say he was born in the Town of Red River. But, he definitely practiced in Lincoln where he and his wife were known as "pedagogues." Finishing at New York's Rush Medical School in May 1887, Dr. John J. Looze was welcomed back to the area. At the time the Record reported him to be an "ambitious man of exemplary habits who deserves a good practice." Looze didn't remain in the county for the rest of his life as he relocated to Seymour in January 1898. Dr. William Witcpalek was a Bohemian who was born on a farm in Lincoln in 1871, just three months before the horrific event that came to be called the Peshtigo Fire.
Bizarre - or even hilarious - as it is today, Witcpalek left school to work in a meat market. It was said he was a competent butcher who eventually bought an interest in a butcher shop. He returned to school and became a teacher, serving in Lincoln for a few years, and then at other schools until 1907 when he moved his wife and children to Milwaukee so he could attend medical school. Two years later he went to Northwestern University, graduating in medicine and dentistry in 1911 and opening his Algoma practice in 1914. Witcpalek was said to inherit his desire to serve the sick from his mother mother, an herbalist and midwife.
Dr. Herb Foshion was another Belgian physician, born in 1895 at Thiry Daems, in Red River Town, a stone's throw from the others' birthplaces. From there his family moved to the Town of Gardner in Door County. He attended Algoma High School and Door-Kewaunee County Normal School, not because he wanted to be a teacher, but because he wanted to further his education. Foshion enrolled in medical school at UW-Madison, an education interrupted by World War l. Receiving his M.D. degree at the University of Minnesota in 1923, Foshion arrived in Algoma on January 1, 1925 where, a few years later, he spear-headed a community hospital such as Bellin had done in Green Bay a few years earlier. Foshion wasn't born in the Town of Lincoln, but he was Belgian and the second to organize a hospital.
So why did all those men become doctors? It has been suggested they were children of those who had experienced the horrors of the Peshtigo fire and knew the way to a better life was a an education and making money. However, country doctors didn't make much money and often times were paid in fireplace wood, a pig, bushels of apples or whatever medium could be used. Perhaps those men recognized a need and filled it.
For generations following immigration, the Belgian-Americans were an insular people. Though other immigrant groups stuck together, they gradually assimilated. Assimilation took the Belgians generations however, and no doubt the assimilation was rooted in school consolidation.
Schools in the Belgian districts were thought to be of lesser quality than the non-Belgian districts. In the early days, an education wasn't essential. It was clearing the land, raising crops, cutting wood and everything else crucial for a survival that was little more than subsistence. It was not only the Belgians who relied on those within their community. Those sharing a common language offered protection and comfort. There were always folk remedies such as poultices for colds and fevers, herbal teas for constipation and such complaints. Even cobwebs were regarded as valuable for stopping bleeding. Typhoid and diphtheria wiped out entire families and some never recovered from the grippe. Forests were so dense in the early days that getting the sick to a doctor would have been nearly impossible. Even as forests were cut down, travel and distance remained a drawback.
The six Town of Lincoln doctors provided an exceptional service to the Belgian community and to Kewaunee County beyond. Kerscher has record of sorts among Wisconsin's country doctors. When he retired, it was noted that he had delivered over 4,100 babies.
For whatever reason, capable, hard-working men born within a few miles of each other within a generation gave all they had to family, relatives, neighbors and friends and those they met for the first time. They spoke the language and they were trusted.
Algoma no longer has the hospital that began with Foshion, however its residents, those in Kewaunee County and all over Northeast Wisconsin are served at Bellin Hospital. Julius Bellin lives on. So do the other men!
*Euren was also known as Bottkolville and given its name by the Bottkol family that settled the area. Euren takes that name from the place from which the Bottkols came near Trier, Germany. Thiry Daems in Red River Township is an easy bike ride from any of the other birthplaces. Grandma's first cousin was one of the deaconesses working with Dr. Bellin at the founding of the hospital.
Sources include Ahnapee Record, Algoma Record Herald, Ancestry and Wikipedia.
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