By Michael J. Caylor Jr.
What started out in a wood frame building on Second Street in Merrill became the foundation of health care for the Merrill area. As the grandson of one of the early pioneers has passed away, let us take a moment to think about what he and his family have brought to our community over the years.
It was actually Drs. Bergeson and Monroe who built the wood frame structure known as the Merrill Hospital. The building would have been located at about 714 E. 2nd St., where the parking lot is for what is now an apartment building located to the west and north of Family Video. Russian and Turkish baths were a luxury, and both could be found in the basement of the two story building which could house around a couple of dozen patients. Much has been written over the years about the Holy Cross Sisters and their influence on medical treatment in Merrill and the north woods. The Sisters were able to get much of their money by selling $10 tickets to woodsmen offering free medical care in case of illness or injury – something also offered by the Merrill Hospital which then saw an influx once a year of these hearty men. They would come to town and peel off their clothes for the first time in a long time revealing a year’s worth of injuries and scars.
The hospital would change hands several times in its early years until 1900 when Dr. Michael Ravn came to Merrill. He aptly named the building the Ravn Hospital. Dr. Ravn was born in Laerdal, Norway on Aug. 13, 1852. He graduated from the medical course of the University of Christiania before immigrating to the United States and moving to Scandinavia, WI in 1881 where he practiced medicine until 1900 when he settled in Merrill. Dr. Ravn’s wife Valborg died in 1904, and he married his second wife Ingeborg Amalia Hoegh at Spring Grove, MN in 1906. In total Dr. Michael Ravn had five children, two boys and three girls.
In 1920, his son Erling Ravn (Sr.) joined him in practice and together they operated the building as a hospital until 1923 when they closed the hospital portion and devoted the building’s use to a clinic. The reason for the hospital’s closing was the Sisters of Mercy had arrived in Merrill by 1923 and began their own hospital on the hill at the request of the city, dedicating Holy Cross Hospital in 1926.
Clinic Evolves
With the success of their practice more doctors started calling the Ravn Clinic home. The aging Dr. Michael Ravn was likely preparing to retire when his son Dr. Bjarne Ravn arrived in 1924 to join his father and brother at the clinic after having worked in Minnesota for several years. Dr. Michael Ravn retired in 1926 at the age of 82, having served this community for 26 years.
Over the years the clinic grew and a dentist, Dr. Charles Schofield, came along to join them, and then with the advances in x-ray technology the clinic got their own tech, Sigrud Mattson. By the 1930s the clinic had its own pharmacy as well.
Dr. Erling O. Ravn Sr. had served in the Army Medical Corps from 1917-1919 with a hospital unit attached to British forces in France during World War I. Upon his return from service Erling Sr. married the former Helen Cotey. Prior to his service in the Army he had graduated from Merrill High School and the University of Wisconsin and Northwestern University Medical School. He served as an alderman, on the board of education, and was the city’s mayor from 1948-1950. Erling Sr. retired in 1965 and died in 1969 at the age of 77.
Dr. Bjarne Ravn was the older brother to Erling. He was born in Waupaca County in 1884 and graduated from Northwestern University Medical School in Evanston, IL. Besides being a surgeon he was a radiologist; he too served in the Army Medical Corp during World War I. Prior to his service to our country he married Myrtle Frogner in 1920 in Waupaca County. Dr. Bjarne Ravn’s professional career lasted for 46 years having also served in Antigo at Langlade Memorial Hospital in addition to his local practice. He died in 1955 at the age of 70 after being ill for several years.
Along Came Ole:
Dr. Erling Oscar Ravn Jr, was born in Merrill in 1926, or six years after his father began his practice in Merrill. Erling Jr., or “Ole,” was the only child of Erling and Helen. Ole graduated from Merrill High School in 1944 and enlisted in the United States Marine Corps at the age of 17. Ann Ravn said one of the saddest things she ever saw was Dr. Erling Sr. driving Ole’s Model T away from the Merrill depot by himself as the train departed. Ole became part of the Fourth Division or the “Fighting Fourth” – a group that was involved in major amphibious assaults on such faraway places as Kwajalein, Saipan, Tinian and Iwo Jima. During operations Ole was assigned to a group that guarded Japanese prisoners of war but he knew that assignment was likely temporary as his group was being readied for the invasion of the Japanese mainland, an invasion that likely would have resulted in hundreds of thousands of casualties and would likely have wiped out first waves from groups such as the Fourth Division. Lucky for Ole and his fellow soldiers ,Col. Paul Tibbets and his crew from the Enola Gay helped bring an end to the war in the Pacific before the mainland was ever invaded.
Discharged in 1946, he headed back to Wisconsin where he pursued his medical degree, first attending the University of Wisconsin–Madison before enrolling at Marquette University of Medicine where he graduated in 1954. Dr. Erling Ravn completed an internship in general surgery at Madison General Hospital (now known as Unity Point-Meriter Hospital) before returning to Merrill in 1958 with his wife, the former Ann Elsen, and his growing family.
Dr. Ole Ravn was also involved in the community as a member of the board of education, the Merrill Community Development Committee, and for many years served on the Merrill Police and Fire Commission. He was also active in the band endowment fund, the school forest, and sat on the board of directors of Lincoln County Bank, Church Mutual Insurance Company, Holy Cross, and Good Samaritan Hospitals.
He was very active in the American Cancer Society being the president of the Wisconsin group in both 1974 and 1975. The American Cancer Society recognized his lifetime of contributions to their group with the Distinguished Service in Cancer Control award in 1986.
The father and son doctor team practiced in the clinic building together until 1965 when Erling Sr. semi-retired and then retired. In 1965, the first person to practice in the clinic since 1900 without the name Ravn on his medical license was Dr. James Janowiak who joined the staff in 1965 as Erling Sr. retired; Dr. Jack Millenbah joined the clinic staff in 1969. A new Ravn clinic had been built in 1960 and then enlarged in 1969. The original clinic building was razed in 1960. With the increase in additional doctors the clinic name was changed to the Family Medical Clinic in 1969. Dr. Michael Mikkelson took up practice there in 1972 followed by Dr. Thomas Simerson in 1975 and then Dr. Geoffrey Kloster in 1976. It was in the fall of that year when the group known as the Hilltop Medical Group opened the new Family Medical Clinic on O’Day Street just east of the present day Marshfield Clinic. That state of the art facility housed the six doctors along with a staff of 32 to manage the growing medical needs of the community.
Dr. Erling Ravn Jr. mostly had a role as the surgeon to the clinic staff. In 1989 he retired at the age of 62. In advertisements, he was pictured with Dr. Steven Dahm assuring his patients and the community that they were in safe hands with the doctor who had returned to Merrill to practice under Dr. Ravn, a man Dr. Dahm had called his mentor.
The Ravns built their home on Ninth Street and lived there for 58 years expanding it as the family expanded. That home was known to many in the neighborhood as the auxiliary “Ravn Clinic” as friends and neighbors would stop by for diagnoses and treatment of injuries from the common cold to ice auger lacerations. Ole was also a firm believer in hometown medicine, something I am sure that was something he learned as a boy growing up watching his father practice. The Ravn children remembered when goods from a farm or access to a fishing hole were just as good as cash when Dr. Ole Ravn made his house calls. His children would relate he enjoyed the mystery of illness, being able to diagnose and treat and then watching his patients recover thanks to his skills. For most of his life Dr. Ravn would be able to recognize his former patients and recall exactly what operations he had performed on them.
Eventually both Erling and Ann turned to Bell Tower Residence as they aged, both moving there a few years ago. The once renowned provider of care became the patient himself as his body slowly submitted to Alzheimer’s disease. Of course, the entire time his devoted wife Ann remained at his side along with a dedicated group of caregivers.
There, on Wednesday, Sept. 12, 2018, surrounded by his family Dr. Erling Oscar Ravn passed away. He leaves behind his children, Michael (Jean); Kristin (Dave); Mary (Dave); Timothy (Tracy) and Thomas along with 14 grandchildren and 15 grandchildren.
For three generations and 89 years the name Ravn was synonymous with medical care in the Merrill community and it continues to be associated with community service here. No one probably even knows or remembers what brought Dr. Michael Ravn here in 1900, but this community was changed for the better thanks to him, his children, his grandchildren, and now his great grandchildren and great-great grandchildren, many of whom continue serving the Merrill community.