Heritage Snapshot: Part 120

Dr. Walter E. Macpherson, a man who spent his entire professional career on the faculty of the School of Medicine, was described by colleagues as “a man from whom I’ve never heard an unkind word. Probably no other graduate of the College of Medical Evangelists (CME) in Loma Linda was as highly esteemed. During his tenure Dr. Macpherson became one of CME’s favorite professors. Some referred to him affectionately as Dr. Mac. Those close to him, including his wife, simply called him Mac. He was described as a man “whose honesty and straightforwardness are never questioned”… “whose judgment is respected by everyone”… “who is the soul of humility, tolerance, equanimity”… “who has something intangible that makes him grow in stature”… “completely selfless.” His calmness and self-control was a quieting influence in many an important meeting. His wife once remarked, “Mac would even be willing, if asked, to be the assistant pencil sharpener as long as it was for CME.” Dr. Macpherson and his twin sister Margaret were born on December 19, 1899, in Wadsworth, Nevada, at the time a railroad terminal. He didn’t know how he got interested in the practice of medicine, but knew when he was 3 or 4 that he would someday become a physician. And all of his playmates, throughout his childhood, also knew. When he was 4 the railroad moved to a more favorable area and so did the town—to a vacant area thirty miles away and three miles east of Reno, known today as Sparks, Nevada. He attended public schools and graduated from the Sparks High School in 1918, the tallest member and star of the school’s basketball team. Walter’s father became a partner in the Austin & Macpherson Mercantile Co, a combination hardware and grocery store, from which Walter delivered groceries twice a day to his father’s customers in a horse-drawn delivery wagon. The Macphersons kept the horses behind the store. Even in high school Walter demonstrated leadership abilities. He became president of the student body, business manager of the school’s yearbook, and valedictorian of his senior class. Just before graduation, Walter started thinking about the future. Because he excelled so much in school, the president of the University of Nevada visited the Macpherson home and suggested that Walter attend his University, which was only three miles away. He recommended that Walter then attend Stanford University School of Medicine. On the other hand, Walter’s family physician, a graduate of Rush Medical School in Chicago, told him he’d help him go to school there. Walter didn’t know anything at all about medical schools, but was beginning to learn. In the meantime, when Walter was about 14, J. A. Stevens, a traveling minister, baptized Walter, his mother, sister, and brother into the Fifth Street Reno Seventh-day Adventist Church, one of the earliest Adventist churches in the West. Because Walter and his siblings were the only children in the small Reno congregation, he continued attending Sunday School at the local Baptist Church, where all of his friends worshiped. When the district pastor told the Macphersons about an Adventists medical school down in Loma Linda, California, and that it was called the College of Medical Evangelists, he bought a railroad ticket from Sparks to Loma Linda. He arrived in Loma Linda assuming that he could enroll in CME. When he arrived, President Newton G. Evans, MD, and Dean Edward H. Risley, MD, told him that he had arrived too early, and that he needed to complete requirements for acceptance at Pacific Union College near St. Helena, California. So Walter bought a ticket at the Loma Linda Depot to St. Helena, where he asked, “Is there a Pacific Union College around here somewhere?” The fellow at the train station said, “Oh, yes, it is up on the hill. A truck from Pacific Union College just left here a little while ago so you’ll have to wait until tomorrow in order to get a ride.” The next day, Walter arrived at Pacific Union College where, over the next two years he worked as a store clerk to help pay expenses and completed the requirements for entrance into the College of Medical Evangelists. For the first time in his life he could relate to peers who believed as he did. In 1920 he started medical school at CME. Assignments took all of his time. Even though his studies were relatively strenuous, he considered it to be the best time of his life. In fact he thought it was fun. To be a medical student and to take those courses he said was “great stuff.” Walter Macpherson graduated from CME in 1924, the first class to graduate in the Outdoor Amphitheater on the north slope of Sanitarium Hill. (After construction of an acoustic shell and orchestra pit in 1935 it was named the Loma Linda Bowl.) During his medical education he got personally acquainted with CME giants such as John A. Burden, Newton G. Evans, MD, Edward H. Risley, MD, Alfred Q. Shryock, MD, and Percy T. Magan, MD. Today, five buildings on the campus of Loma Linda University are named after these men. Toward the end of his internship at the old Los Angeles County Hospital he began to wonder what he would do next. He considered becoming a medical missionary to Africa, but the fact that he was single disqualified him.