A Town Called Juniper

History books are full of stories about how this country was settled - including the west. But they don't tell you everything. In fact, the people who wrote the history books probably didn't even know some of the most interesting and funniest tales. For instance, I bet you never heard how the little town of Juniper East got its name, so I guess it's up to me.

There weren't many doctors around in those days. One day a wagon, pulled by a team of oxen, with one cow walking alongisde it, rolled into this mining camp. The men were living in tents, or covered wagons, but most of them were building cabins and making arrangements for their wives and children to join them. When the miners found out that the driver of the wagon was a docor, they wanted him to stay. With women and children around a doctor would surely be needed. When he agreed, they all stopped their mining activities and pitched in long enough to build a little two-room cabin for Doc Francis. One room was the clinic and the other was the doctor's living quarters. They also built a little barn for the cow, with room for a chicken coop and plenty of winter hay.

After the doctor moved in, no one ever saw the inside of the living quarters. Doc Francis was a bit strange, kept to himself all the time. When he wasn't needed in the clinic, he looked after his cow and hens, and he had a good size garden to tend. The Doc grew some of the herbs and plants he used to make some of his medicine but sometimes he went out into the country to find wild herbs too. The miners usually paid him with a small amount of gold dust, or with firewood.

As the story goes, when Doc Francis arrived here, he brought trees with him. That's what I said, trees! Had the roots tied up in wet sacks, filled with dirt, and stood down into wooden boxes. When they started building his cabin, the first thing Doc did was plant them trees, four of them, about three and a half feet tall, and he watered them every day without fail. He said they was junipers, just a little bit of home that he brought along from back east. Turned out to be more than that, though, for Doc made medicine from the juniper berries that he said would help keep the miners healthy. Said it was an old remedy, dating way back to the Middle Ages!

Pretty soon, the trees was how people found Doc's place. Whenever a stranger came to town in need of a doctor, they were told, 'It's that little cabin at the edge of town with the juniper trees from back east. Ya can't miss it.' Well, as time went on, the trees grew and so did Doc's fame. Stories began to get mixed up and instead of talking about a doctor with juniper trees, they talked of a doctor in Juniper. That's how it started!

Doc Francis was kind of small and thin, compared to the miners but he didn't do much hard physical labour. He went into town twice each year, in the spring and in the fall, to pick up new things for his clinic, or a few supplies that his garden didn't provide. On these trips he would bring back any mail for the miners, or things they asked him to get.

He was always helpful and polite but not very social. Sometimes he would sit outside on Sundays, either reading or writing. None of the miners had learned anything about him or where he had come from. They weren't even sure if he was a 'real' doctor but he did good work so they didn't care. They just figured that Doc was a loner, an educated man, apparently a bit religious and left it at that.

It wasn't until he passed away that they learned the truth - Doc Francis was a woman! It was all written down in a journal. Everything she knew had been learned from her doctor father but women weren't allowed to practice medicine. After her father's death, she had left her home in New York, with all her belongings, her father's medical equipment and supplies, and headed for the Canadian west. She disguised herself as a man and no one ever guessed her secret.

After Doc Francis died, the people in the town got together and decided that Juniper East would be the town's name, in honour of Doc and his trees from back east. Pappy Pike volunteered to put up a sign 'cause he said if it weren't for Doc Francis, the rhumatiz would'a put him in a wheelchair years ago. Oh, by the way, there is no Juniper West.

That's the truth, too. I got it from Doc Francis himself ... I mean, herself ... just before she died. Hey! Would I lie to you?