For the past eight decades, people throughout the area have been able to go see Dr. Foote when they didn’t feel well.
It started in the 1950s in Indian Lake with Dr. Joseph Foote, a country doctor who practiced medicine before computers, who routinely made house calls and who sometimes would accept a shotgun – or even a live turkey – as payment for services rendered.
It ended on April 1, after moves to Fort Ann and Hudson Falls, when his son Dr. David Foote, who embraced technology and the power it held to better treat patients, retired from the Main Street, Hudson Falls practice the duo built in 1990.
With his Dr. David Foote M.D. lab coat hanging on his office door and flanked by two integral office staff members both named Bonnie, David reflected about moving on from a practice that he felt was a little different than most – where someone always answered the phone and where personal touches were a priority.
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It was a place, where the doctors really knew the patients and “listened to the heart, and not just the heartbeat,” according to Bonnie Foote, chief information officer and David’s sister-in-law, quoting from David at his recent retirement party.
For David, retirement hasn’t really sunk in yet.
“I’ve been saying goodbye to people for six months and it’s really emotionally draining,” he said, adding that he’ll mostly miss the interaction with staff and patients, some of whom were treated initially by his dad, who passed away in 2011. “You get a certain amount of satisfaction solving problems and helping people.
“And it’s nice to follow in his footsteps, though I didn’t know it at the time.”
Unpacking the life before packing up the officeIn a 90-minute interview in his office, David talked about his life before and after he became a doctor. He revealed that his biological dad died when he was 9, and when his mom married the divorced Joseph, the union created a Brady Bunch scenario with a total of eight children, four on each side – and all boys. That would balloon to 10 kids when his mom and Joseph had another child of their own and adopted a girl.
David also talked about not really wanting to be a doctor as a kid because he saw the toll it took on Joseph, who literally allowed himself to be on call 24/7.
Though he maintained an office in Fort Ann from 1965 until he retired in 2003, Joseph at one point was also simultaneously working out of offices in Schuylerville and Hudson Falls and Indian Lake, where he started.
And he did house calls throughout the entire area on top of that.
“We were always waiting for him sitting in the car while he was doing house calls. I didn’t really like his lifestyle,” David said with a laugh.
But a senior year biology class in high school sparked an interest, and before long he was following in the Foote footsteps. Although initially not interested in family medicine like his dad, in April 1984, exactly 40 years ago, he started working in the Fort Ann family practice, learning from his “dad.”
The duo then expanded, opening an office at 100 John Street in Hudson Falls for six years before building and moving into the current complex at 340 Main Street in 1990.
While they shared a name and profession, however, the two Footes weren’t much alike, according to Office Manager Bonnie Ballweber, who started working for Joseph in 1978 at the age of 19.
Joseph was soft-spoken, resourceful, and didn’t care about punctuality if it meant giving a patient a little more needed time. His office waiting room was often stacked with people who would patiently wait for hours, she said.
Buskirk resident Deb McCauliffe, whose first-born daughter, Marisa, was delivered in her home by Joseph in 1978, can attest to the office scene.
At seven months pregnant, she was unhappy with her doctor and dreaded the thought of delivering a baby in such a “antiseptic” hospital room after a field trip there as part of a lamaze class. She learned of Joseph Foote and his experience with home deliveries, but she was shocked when he agreed to take her on as a patient that far along.
She would visit the Fort Ann office in the weeks prior to delivery to find it packed with people – at 8 or 9 p.m. – patiently waiting their turn.
“I would feel this vibe in there that they love him and will wait as long as they have to. He had a very kind sprit,” she said. “And he drove down at midnight, in the winter, to deliver her.”
As for him being resourceful, Ballweber told the story about when his old pick-up truck transmission failed to move him forward one day, he drove it in reverse from Glens Falls Hospital to Fort Ann.
David, according to Ballweber and Bonnie Foote, is super punctual, was more diligent about running the office, but is also more of “type A” guy who likes to talk and laugh.
But both were really good doctors, they said.
“And they complimented each other with completely different skills and aspirations,” Bonnie Foote said. “They were a paradoxical balance that I don’t even have language for.”
Ballweber, who was also married to one of David’s brothers and called Joseph “dad,” talked lovingly about all he did for her. She said he took a shy, 19-year-old kid and basically gave her a career in medicine – from serving as a makeshift nurse and accountant for him in the office to helping him dress the turkey he received for one house call around Thanskgiving.
The turkey, still alive, road home with them in the back of the cap-covered pickup truck, she said.
“I didn’t eat any of it because I knew it,” Ballweber said laughing.
As old school as Joseph was, in the next breath, though, the two Bonnies were telling about how David saved the life of a woman in the Hudson Falls office parking lot, even leaping over the sidewalk rail to get to her quicker.
Ballweber said she had worked much more closely with Joseph, but seeing David save a woman who was blue and lifeless when she arrived, was life-changing.
“He came down the stairs, jumped over the rail, pulled her out of the car and onto the grass and started working on her. I was like, wow! I got to see him save a life and I’ll never forget it.”
Moving on is hard
David Foote said three years after his father retired because of poor hearing, he announced he was coming back to work. David said he worries he’ll be in the same boat once retirement sets in.
But for now, he does have some retirement plans.
He has projects mapped out, like modernizing a family camp in Indian Lake. He also wants to “explore the Adirondacks more” and travel abroad – maybe doing mission work in Africa, where he has been twice. Africa is also a perfect canvas for his photography hobby. His landscape handiwork still hangs on the walls of the waiting room. He also plans to continue his photography hobby using a drone.
“It’s like being an eagle and seeing what they see,” he said.
But as hard as it might be for him to move on, the two Bonnies are feeling it as well – perhaps more. They talk about the office staff as family – and that extends to the patients.
“This is ‘Cheers.’ We know our patients,” Bonnie Foote said, adding that’ll be hard to let go of.
And Ballweber said working for the Footes is all she has known since 1978.
“That’s all I’ve lived, eaten and breathed for 47 years so it’s hard to imagine. It’s like losing a part of you, like breathing,” Ballweber said.
She said she might continue in the medical field in some capacity – if it involves improving patient care.
Bonnie Foote, who has worked in the office since 1986, said she’s struggling with the next chapter too, but figures it will likely involve more community work. She stressed that whatever she does next, she’ll stay busy to avoid “falling flat on my face.”
“I want to work a little bit more because I do have a skill set,” she said about her work with technology and medicine. “I don’t have a solid plan, but I want to do things that somehow add value somewhere.”
Longtime patients like Cathie Shortt are lamenting David’s retirement too.
Shortt and her now deceased husband, Jim, traveled from Indian Lake to Fort Ann and Hudson Falls since the 1960s to be treated by the Footes. They even bought a parcel of land from Joseph to build a house on after moving up from New York City to raise a family.
While Joseph was their doctor and the doctor for their children for decades, David took over their care in their later years. Joseph, she said, was more stern and direct with his health directives to her and her somewhat stubborn husband.
David, she said, was easier to talk to, and she credits him with counseling her when her husband was in failing health before his death just over two years ago.
“I was breaking down and went to see David and he was just so great to talk to,” she said.
Now that David is retiring, she said she’s in the unenviable position of having to find a doctor.
“I told them both they’re not supposed to retire before I die,” she said with a laugh. “I told David, ‘You’re going to be bored. You could work part-time and I’d come and see you.’
“I’ve never looked for a doctor.”
Though the Foote legacy has ended on Main Street, a new practice has started in the same location under the direction of Nurse Practitioner Antonio Izzo, who worked for Foote.
David said several of his patients will continue coming to see Izzo and he said unofficially he’s happy to help him out with advice if he needs it.
“He’s my child,” he said with a chuckle. “If he has any questions he can ask, as long as they don’t involve billing.”
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<&rdpEm>David Blow is a freelance journalist and professor of Communications at Vermont State University Castleton and may be reached at davent67@gmail.com</&rdpEm>