Contributed by Broadalbin
Historian, Gordon Cornell.
Posted on this site with gracious permission from the Finch descendants.
By Clement A. Finch, M.D.
Gordon L. Cornell, Historian
The Medical Heritage of the Finch Family
The Finch family has generated a wealth of historical and
genealogical information from which to extract data and compile this
story. After giving the matter some thought, I realized that I knew very
little about personal aspects of the people, especially those who chose to move
to other areas of the country. Also, how did the activities of these four
generations of doctors relate to the changes in the practice of medicine?
An appeal was made to Dr. Clement A. Finch in the state of Washington for
assistance. He graciously agreed, and his contributions as a grandson of
the often read about and referred to Dr. H. C. Finch makes this an informative
and more interesting family history of a long succession of physicians.
1st Generation
HENRY CLEMENT FINCH was born in the town of
Northampton, Fulton County, on April 27, 1858, and was a great grandson of Rev.
Jonathan Finch, who was the first pastor of the Broadalbin Baptist Church.
H. C. Finch chose to enter the field of medicine and enrolled
at Albany Medical College. On September 1, 1881, during medical school he
married Charlotte A. (Lottie) Barker at the Broadalbin Methodist Episcopal
Church. On March 1, 1882, he received his medical license.
Lottie Barker Finch was the daughter of David N. Barker, who
started his medical practice in Broadalbin on June 14, 1848, so in a sense our
story goes back to the 1848 date. Following graduation, H. C. Finch joined
his father-in-law as a junior member of the partnership with their offices in
Broadalbin and Mayfield.
News of the day for March 1884 informs us that Dr. H. C.
Finch purchased the house and lot on North Main Street, known as the Gideon
Soules property, where he intends to make his home.
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N. Main Street residence and office |
There he lived until he built "Hillcrest."
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Hillcrest |
Dr. and Mrs. Finch moved into their new mansion on Saratoga Avenue during
March 1916, based upon information located in The Morning Herald. The home on Main Street
was where the Finches raised their five children.
In 1884 Dr. H. C. Finch established a drug business in
Broadalbin as was frequently done by doctors in those times when professional
income was limited. In 1886 Richard H. Lee, a pharmacist, was admitted as
a partner. The business continued under the name of Finch and Lee until
1909, when they consolidated with Bradford and Dickinson under the name of the
Broadalbin Drug Company.
A civic-minded person, a good business man and a popular
doctor, H. C. was in a position of influence, and when efforts to bring the
Fonda, Johnstown and Gloversville Railroad to Broadalbin seemed a distant
possibility, Henry Clement Finch stepped up to the plate. He used his
influence to gain financial backing at the same time he joined with J. W.
Cleveland, a noted surveyor, to form the Broadalbin Construction Company.
This company built the rail bed for a part of the distance, from Broadalbin to
Broadalbin Junction, and at that point the F J & G agreed to complete the
connection. The first run was on October 31, 1895, after Miss Kitty Husted
drove the last spike. Dignitaries only were involved on the initial
trip. The first scheduled round trip was on November 21, 1895.
H. C.'s involvement in community affairs can not mentioned
without some omissions. He was the organizer and president of the
Broadalbin Knitting Mill that employed some 300 town people at its most
productive period. He helped form the Broadalbin Bank and was its
president. He aided in the development of the Broadalbin Electric and
Power Company and the village waterworks. He was president of the Board of
Education and aided in the construction of new schools for the village. He
was also a member of the county and state medical associations.
While involved in these various business endeavors, H.
C. conscientiously attended to his medical practice, covering up to fifteen
miles from Broadalbin by horse-drawn conveyance.
He also served for many years as county coroner. There is
little wonder that Dr. Finch made use of a chauffeur when he made house
calls. Doctors often had to sleep on the road or get no sleep at
all. When going became too tough for horse and cutter, Dr. Finch was known
to take off on snowshoes, carrying his doctor's bag, so patients would not go
unattended. While keeping all the above moving, Dr. Finch held office
hours from 7 to 9 AM, 1to 2 PM and 6 to 7 PM at his residence on Main
Street. In 1898 in an attempt to do even more for the community, he opened
a hospital, the Keeley Cure Institute, located in what had been the Kennyetto
Hotel. Its purpose was to serve as a drying-out place for alcoholics and
was attended by a surgeon and eighteen nurses. This project, that
expressed H. C.'s aversion to the harmful affects of alcohol, was in part
possibly due to the entrance of nurses into the health care system at about that
time. The Institute was discontinued a few years later for unclear
reasons, certainly not from a want of alcohol consumption in the neighborhood.
Dr. H. C. Finch died on November 15th, 1933, from colon
cancer, leaving behind a long legacy of successes and a family inspired by the
example he set, with later generations of doctors following in his
footsteps. There are many stories about H. C. Finch and his years in
Broadalbin, far too many to include here. Some of them can be read in a
book "SHOO-FLY and Other Folk Tales from Upstate" by Donald J. Sawyer,
a grandson-in-law of Dr. and Mrs. Finch.
H. C. was an imposing figure in his prime at 250 odd pounds
and the bearing of a statesman.
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H. C. Finch |
Later on he lost nearly 70 pounds to
diabetes. Typically, he followed to the letter the instructions given him
by Boston's Joslin Diabetic Clinic, where he was one of the first to be treated
with insulin. Seemingly a gentle man, he rarely raised his voice and was
not given to small talk, but there was an underlying firmness of which the family
was aware. As a deacon in the Baptist Church, he held to the Bible more
than most and led the family's Sunday attendance. His grandchildren were
paid ten cents for every verse in the Bible that they memorized. Alcohol was
never to be found in his house except for the occasion of his 50th wedding
anniversary when, unbeknownst to him, the punch had been spiked by a relative.
This unpardonable affront barred the offending person from the inner circle
thereafter. Nor did H. C. smoke, and he let it be known that all
grandchildren would receive $1000 at the age of 21 if they never smoked.
The late 19th century was a difficult time in which to
practice medicine with late night house calls in rural areas serviced by poor
roads. The limited sanitation meant that a meal at a patient's house could
occasionally have unpleasant consequences. When good manners dictated that
he stay for a bite to eat, H. C. would request a hard-boiled egg and a baked
potato with the skin still on.
One of H. C.'s favorite prescriptions was called
"Alkaline Elixir", concocted from a secret folk-medicine
formula. The Finch children all learned to respect its curative powers for
a variety of minor illnesses, and it enjoyed a similar reputation throughout the
countryside. Today it would be recognized as a placebo.
A doctor's income then was limited because the charges were
low. Visits were often paid by produce, others were unpaid and little
effort was made to collect. Even more discouraging was the limited help a
doctor could provide for his patients other than the comfort of his words.
The hard time for a doctor came when there was nothing available to cure a
patient's serious illness -- as when H. C.'s son, Burton Roland, ruptured his
appendix, resulting in peritonitis and death, with his father standing by,
helplessly at his bedside.
The allegiance of his patients was demonstrated when one of
his more wealthy patients was taken sick when traveling in France. Despite
the attendance of French doctors, she paid H. C.'s way to consult with
them. He took the opportunity to tour Europe and sent his impressions of
those "foreign lands" back to the local newspaper.
2nd Generation
PERCY HENRY FINCH was born in Broadalbin on January
21, 1890, one of five children of Henry Clement and Lottie Finch. After
finishing grade school, he entered Albany Medical College as had his
father. By then the medical school program had lengthened to 4
years. Apparently, schooling presented little problem for him since he was
essayist of his graduating class. According to classmates, a photographic
memory allowed him to spend evenings at the local burlesque while they were
laboring over their books. He graduated in 1911. Six months
internship at the St. Peters Hospital of Albany ended in an altercation with the
Mother Superior, and he entered practice with his father. In 1912 he
married Marion Elizabeth Dye of Gloversville.
Then the World War came, and in 1917 Perc joined the army,
only to be discharged the following year because of what was considered a heart
attack, later shown to be gall stones. When he returned, he and Marion
settled in a modest house at 34 North Main Street, Broadalbin, where his father
had previously lived.
Perc was a charter member of the Robert Lee Walsh Post 337,
American Legion, of Broadalbin. He also served as the first County
representative from Broadalbin.
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P. H. Finch |
The next few years were filled with stories of his country
practice that involved many unusual situations since there was no nearby
hospital for referral in those days. One time he answered a call outside
of town in the evening. A patient with acute appendicitis required an
immediate operation, but the light at the home was insufficient. Perc
managed to rig the lights from his car to shine on the kitchen table and
successfully completed the operation.
He had quickly established a busy practice, but was not
satisfied simply to take over his father's patients, and in 1922 moved eight
miles to Gloversville in a house vacated by the Saxons at 21 First Ave. In
1923 he undertook a six month trip to some of the better known clinics of
Europe, but on his return, continued with his general practice that consisted of
seeing some 40 to 80 patients in his office through the day and home calls in
the evening. The x-ray machine in his office provided a glimpse of new
technology being introduced into medical practice. At one time he hired a
chemist to do research in the basement. After his death, his son Clem,
found an old kjeldahl rack and some notes in his dad's hand. Their content
was sufficient to indicate that his research was a hobby and not to be taken
seriously, at least in the light of today's knowledge. It did
reflect the increased interest in research by the medical community.
Perc was a complex and frustrated person. From the
beginning he was both the darling and despair of his parents. He had been
reared in an environment far too strict for his taste, yet he married a woman
who was the mirror of propriety. He showed little evidence of his father's
upbringing - he was an incessant smoker and cared little about religion.
He lived beyond his means with a disregard for billing patients. Then
there was his passion for cars. He purchased the first car in town when
living in Broadalbin and challenged his father with his horse and buggy to a
race. The resulting story, published in Today's Health, June 1962, tells
us that he in his car and grandfather's chauffeur with the horse and buggy raced
through the town to the cemetery and back. The horse had established
itself in the lead at the beginning, and it seemed impossible to pass due to the
narrowness of the road. When they came back through the town, as a last
resort Perc stalled the car, then accelerated, whereupon, the car back-fired,
the horse swerved to the side allowing the car to slide by.
Perc had a legion of friends of all sorts, and his patients
loved him. By all accounts Perc was a fair man and treated those he met
with respect and without prejudice. Many years later the son-in-law of Art
Vandenburg, Perc's chauffeur, told the following story: It seems that Perc
had sent his chauffeur to buy some meat at the butchers. On packaging the
meat, the butcher asked for his money. Art said to put it on Dr. Finch's
account whereupon the butcher took back the meat, saying, "let me get the
doctor a better piece". On hearing of this encounter, Perc said he
would not buy meat again from a butcher who played favorites. And he never
did.
His thirst for living was tempered by poor health which
continually harassed him. There were not yet effective drugs to relive
asthma, nor to cure a chronic osteomyelitis. Many nights he would sit on
the edge of his bed, probing the sinus tracts in his infected upper right
arm. This led to the excessive use of narcotics which dulled his outside
interests and further limited his activities. Ultimately the infection
spread to his brain and he died in 1931. At his death he was in debt
although there were thousands of dollars on his books. What he was
unwilling to collect in life, his family would not with his death.
LEW FINCH was born in Broadalbin June 19, 1878, son of
William W. and Caroline Lee Finch and was Perc's cousin. In 1899 he
entered the College of Physicians and Surgeons in New York City, graduating in
1903. He later served as assistant in the department of radio-therapeutics
in Brooklyn, NY. There he practiced for a year, then moving his practice
to Broadalbin, and still later to Amsterdam.
The war provided him opportunity to serve in the capacity of
a military surgeon. After the war he spent time in Munich, Vienna, and in
Berne at outstanding surgical clinics. On returning to Amsterdam, he
concentrated on surgery. This was opportune since it was a time of
remarkable advances. Anesthetics including ether and nitrous oxide had
become available. Even more important, an appreciation of the need for
sterility during the operation made it possible to operate on the internal
organs of the body with some likelihood of success. Lew was president of
the Montgomery County Medical Society and was active in the church and various
community affairs. From the many eulogies at his death at 73 years, one
would judge that he made outstanding contributions to the community, not only by
his professional excellence as a surgeon, but also by his fine character.
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Lew Finch |
3rd Generation
(1) CLEMENT ALFRED FINCH was born in 1915, in
Broadalbin, the son of Percy Henry Finch and Marion Elizabeth Finch. He
was educated in Broadalbin and Gloversville public schools except for the last
2 years of high school, 1930-31, when he attended Mercersburg Academy,
Pennsylvania. He obtained a scholarship to Union College for 1932
through 1936. He had always wanted to be a doctor, and hoped he had
inherited the genes that made his predecessors effective. Rochester
Medical School accepted his application. There he spent the standard 4
years with an additional year in a pathology fellowship before graduating in
1941 with honors. His subsequent plan was to obtain good post-graduate
clinical training before going into the practice of medicine in Broadalbin or
Gloversville.
Clem interviewed in Boston and was accepted for an
internship and residency at a Harvard teaching hospital, the Peter Bent
Brigham. His 2 years on the house staff, 1941-1943 and the excitement of
being in this academic center made him forget country practice. He also realized that
one would need to specialize in the future. When rejected by the army due to asthma,
Clem took a fellowship in 1943 in hematology with Dr. Joseph Ross. In that year they
initiated studies of blood preservation for the army. Clem was subsequently invited
to return to the Brigham as chief resident and then faculty. In that capacity he was
responsible for teaching and patient care, for creating and running hematology laboratories
as well as the radioactive monitoring at the hospital.
In 1949 Clem was offered a position in a new medical school in Seattle,
Washington as head of hematology and Associate Professor of Internal Medicine.
Initially his
focus was primarily teaching and patient care, but gradually his interests shifted to
clinical research. Over the following 37 years, there have been over 350 research articles
and several books from the hematology division, reflecting the efforts of Clem and about 150
physicians in training as research fellows or junior faculty in hematology.
The scope of Clem’s
research included blood preservation in which it was shown possible to double the shelf
life of stored
blood, studies of iron metabolism included methods of diagnosing iron deficiency and demonstration
of an effective treatment of iron overload (hemochromatosis), as well as a variety of other
clinically-related topics. Much of this was possible in part due to the financial support provided
by the federal government. In the interval between 1959-1970 Clem made periodic trips on behalf of
World Health to various developing countries, investigating problems relating to anemia.
In 1966 he
had the good fortune to marry Genia English, a physician of Chinese heritage who received her
medical training at Oxford, England. Clem was president of the American Society for Clinical
Investigation, the American Society of Hematology, a member of the National Academy of Science,
the National Academy of Arts and Science and various other organizations. A medical professorship
in Clem’s name was established at the University of Washington School of Medicine in 2001.
STUART CECIL FINCH was born in Broadalbin in 1921, to parents Cecil Clement Finch and
Olga Lofgren Finch. After grade and high schools in Broadalbin he attended Dartmouth College from 1938 to
1941 and then, while in the U. S. Army, he completed his medical training at Rochester Medical School during
the World War II years of 1941-44. Following completion of a surgical internship and pathology residency training
at Baltimore City Hospitals, he married Patricia O’Brien of Rochester, New York, and then served two additional
years of U. S. Army medical service in postwar Japan. Thereafter, he took a fellowship in the field of hematology
with his cousin, Clement Finch, and a year of medical residency training at the Peter Brigham Hospital and
Harvard Medical School. This was followed by 3 years of additional training in the field of hematology at
the Massachusetts Memorial Hospital in Boston during the years 1948-53.
He spent the next 23 years at Yale Medical School as a professor and head of the Division
of Hematology in the Department of Medicine doing research, teaching and medical practice.
Stuart and Pat’s
four children were born during their years in Boston and New Haven,
Connecticut. Stuart continued his academic
career as Chief of Medcine and Director of Research Development at a new clinical campus program in Camden,
New Jersey at the Cooper Hospital for Rutgers University and Robert Wood Johnson medical schools during the years 1979-96.
In the course of his years at Yale and while in New Jersey, Stuart spent 9 years in Japan doing follow-up
studies of the Japanese survivors of the 1945 atomic bombs of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
During the 1990s he became
involved in studies of the possible increased occurrence of leukemia in persons exposed to the radioactive fallout
from the Chernobyl nuclear reactor accident of 1986 in the Ukraine. Stuart now is retired from active academic life
but continues on a daily basis to write in the field of medicine and to serve as a consultant to the National Cancer
Institute in relationship to the ongoing Chernobyl studies, which takes him to
Kiev in the Ukraine several times a year.
ROBERT CHALONER is the son of Millicent Finch Chaloner and the Grandson of Dr. H. C. Finch.
Bob was born in 1932. He graduated from Coxsackie-Athens Central School in 1949 and went to Dartmouth College.
There
he was one of the fortunate 24 students who were picked following their third year in college, to spend his senior
year in their medical school. Dartmouth Medical School at that time was a two year school.
Bob then transferred to
Albany Medical College, where he finished his last three years of Med School, followed by a rotating internship at the
then Albany Hospital. After internship, he practiced for a year and a half with two local physicians.
During the Korean War he was included in the doctor draft which was then in effect and following graduation
from Medical School he spent two years as a captain in the US Army Medical Corp.
On returning to civilian life, he entered general practice with the two physicians he had been working
with previously. It was busy and they were on call 24 hours a day and seven days a week. He also did
hospital
deliveries
and at one point did more deliveries than anyone else in Green County.
While continuing his practice, he also served as Chief Medical Officer at the New York State Correctional
Facility, a maximum security prison in Coxsackie. He retired from there in June 2003.
Bob recounts an interesting story connecting generations.
“When I was in practice, I also collected old
medicine bottles as a hobby. It got so I collected hundreds of them and patients enjoyed brining them to me and seeing them
on the shelves in my office. An elderly lady that I took care of for many years, moved to Mayfield but still came back to
see me after she moved. She never knew nor heard of Grandpa Finch, but on her second visit back to see me, she said she
found an old medicine bottle in her new home’s attic. She brought it to me in a brown paper bag, and said she knew it was
old but I could have it if I wanted it. I opened it to find an old glass medicine bottle with a paper label on
it which said
Finch & Lee, Druggists, Broadalbin, NY. Naturally that one was put in my study at home, where it is today”.
Dr. Chaloner suffered a heart attack after a 42 year career and subsequently underwent coronary artery
bypass. He still serves as the school physician – a position which he has held since 1973 and he is the Public Health Officer
for Coxsackie and Athens.
4th Generation
(1) ELLEN LOFGREN FINCH, the daughter of Stuart and Patricia Finch, was born in 1950 during her father’s
hematology fellowship training in Boston. She grew up in Woodbridge, CT, and graduated from Smith College in 1972, with an
honors B.A. in political science. She then attended Yale University School of Medicine, where she graduated in 1978, a member
of the Alpha Omega Alpha medical honor society. She completed her internship in internal medicine at Massachusetts General
Hospital, and continued her medical residency training at Stanford University Hospital.
She next completed a residency in
anesthesiology at Stanford, with an additional fellowship year in cardiovascular anesthesia.
In 1985 Ellen joined the medical
school faculty at Stanford as part of the cardiac anesthesia group, specializing in anesthesia for heart and lung transplantation
and pediatric cardiac anesthesia. Following marriage, she moved to San Diego in 1989 where she redirected her anesthesia
practice to pain management and palliative care in the Hospice setting. She
currently lives in Northern California and
continues her interest in palliative medicine and the physician’s role in the end-of-life care.
(2) DEREL FINCH was born in Seattle in 1969, parents being Drs. Genia and Clement A. Finch.
His early
education was at Bush School. Following that:
09/1987 - 06/1991 Bachelor of Arts at University of California, San Diego
09/1991 - 06/1995 Medical Degree, University of Washington, Seattle, WA
07/1995 - 06/1996 Internship, Internal Medicine Duke University, Durham, NC
07/1996 - 06/1998 Residency, Internal Medicine Duke University, Durham, NC
07/1998 – 06/2001 Fellowship, Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine, University of Washington, Seattle.
Derel always planned to do medicine. It would probably have been difficult for him to do otherwise with two
doctors as parents. In medical school he received a prize from the Seattle Society of Internal Medicine as the outstanding
student in clinical medicine and was elected to Alpha Omega Alpha, a medical honorary society.
In 2001 he joined a group of
pulmonary specialists practicing in Seattle. Marriage to Maggie Boyer took him to a similar position in Chicago in 2003.
He is representative of today’s specialist, superbly trained in pulmonary problems and intensive care.
Also, it would
appear that despite the time limitations that modern medicine imposes, he has inherited H.C. and P.H. Finch’s ability to
help patient’s not only by modern science but by his own caring manner.
(3) LISA FINCH was born in Seattle in 1967 to her parent doctors, Genia English & Clem Finch.
Early
schooling was at Bush, a private grade school in Seattle. Then she attended the University of
Washington in 1985, where
her early pathway in art changed to premed. In her last college year she spent time with an aids patient, assisting in his
care, further increasing her motivation for medicine. She was accepted at the University of
Washington Medical School and
entered in 1989. She left school at the end of the second year and in the years that followed she became involved in gardening
and landscaping. She also aided in teaching handicapped grade school children, but felt frustrated with her limitations in
providing help. She married Joel Sayre in Seattle in 1995, and in 1998 reapplied to UW and was again accepted.
The second
time around went well. She graduated in 2002 and is in the process of getting boarded in radiology with interventional
radiology her more distant goal.
ROGER CHALONER KNAKAL was born at Poughkeepsie in 1961, the son of Rudolph and Barbara Chaloner Knakal.
Roger is a great grandson of Dr. H. C. Finch.
In 1995 Dr. Knakal was married to the former Deborah Heidke at Hyde Park, NY and they have three children.
Undergraduate studies for Roger were at SUNY Plattsburgh where he received a degree in Biochemistry/Biophysics in
1983. Following graduation he spent time doing research at Yale School of Medicine, and at The Marine Biological Laboratory in
Woods Hole, MA. This resulted in multiple publications in peer reviewed journals.
A medical degree from New York Medical College
was awarded Roger in 1990. From 1990 to 1994 his residency was at the University of Rochester/Strong Memorial Hospital in physical
medicine and rehabilitation.
Following six years at St. Luke’s Hospital of Kansas City he moved to Fletcher Allen Health Care of Burlington, VT.
In his current medical practice Roger has specialized interest in patients suffering from Multiple Trauma, Traumatic Brain Injury and
Stroke. He also sits on Multiple Hospital Committees, and a Statewide Committee to improve the care of Traumatic Brain injured individuals.
Dr. Knakal and his family reside in Richmond, VT. Here his community involvement includes sitting as a Planning
Commissioner in Richmond, as well as instructional league coaching for soccer and basketball.
Summation
This generational account is notable for the parallel changes in medicine at large.
It is now difficult to
appreciate the limitations under which H. C. in particular ministered to his patients.
His education consisted of less than a year of
lectures and an apprenticeship with a certified Doctor.
There were few effective remedies among the variety of pills and potions in their black bag.
Sir William Osler
wrote in his seminal Textbook of Medicine in 1893 that “the treatment of chlorosis (with iron) affords one of the most brilliant
examples - of which we have but three or four – of the specific action of a
remedy.” Yet, paradoxically, that was a time when family
Doctors were held in greatest respect. It was their dedication that was appreciated, their
familiarity with sickness and death that was
supportive, and after all, where else was there to go?
Knowledge of disease was expanding by the second generation, surgical results in particular improved as the
importance of asepsis was appreciated. Hospitals became the center of education and tertiary care.
Yet there were serious limitations
in the physician’s ability to cope with most diseases.
The third generation of Finch physicians was in a time of enlightenment for medicine.
Building on several
centuries of scientific advances and now with research energized by ample financing, the cause of many diseases was disclosed.
More
important, specific cures were developed including sulfonamides and penicillin. Both Clem and Stuart joined the effort to further
increase the physician’s capacity to cure. One attempted to understand and develop new ways to deal with diseases of the blood, the
other provided a better understanding of the adverse effects of irradiation in man.
The fourth generation of doctors is back to patient care, now as specialists in a large health force.
In contrast
to H.C.’s education, a year of lectures and apprenticeship, a physician’s education in medicine now could take the greater part
of a decade for there is much more to learn. New specialties having emerged and we see anesthesiology, hematology, physiotherapy and
pulmonology represented in the 3rd and 4th generations. We find the final step in women’s involvement, from the development of the
nursing profession, beginning in the late 19th century to full participation as physicians in the later half of the 20th
century. The full story of the current generation is yet to be written.
Yet in any setting or any generation, all would agree that caring for
the patient is a special privilege, and the capacity to help in one way or another makes it all worth while.
Addendum
Quite some ago the idea of preserving for future generations some of the information regarding a remarkable doctor
and civic minded citizen has repeatedly come to mind. Further thought brought about the idea that the story did not really confine
itself to Dr. Henry Clement Finch alone, but also three generations of descendants.
Dr. Clement A. Finch of Washington State has for the past few years exchanged messages of historical and
genealogical interest with our Historian, and it became apparent that he could add much to any attempt to prepare a family
history on the Finch physicians. We are most fortunate that he accepted the challenge to
assist with this article, and I might add
that much of the above is in Clem’s words.
Clem, as I have come to know him, although we have never met, has been a wonderful person with whom to work.
From
the onset we have repeatedly challenged one another on remarks that were made.
Sometimes the originator was correct based on
additional research, and sometimes the challenger was correct. At no time have we found it impossible to come to a mutual agreement
on any issue.
As our work progressed, Clem contacted his cousin, Dr. Stuart Finch for his assistance which he willingly supplied,
and he has helped to make this a more complete historical record.
The citizens of the Broadalbin area should feel a sense of gratitude toward Clem and Stuart Finch for their
interest and help in recording this information about the community where they were born.
Years of geographical separation have
not created a loss of interest in our beloved Broadalbin.
Thank you, Gentlemen!
Gordon Cornell
Historian
Return to Fulton County NYGenWeb
NYGenWeb
Copyright © 2004 Gordon Cornell, Dr. Clement A. Finch, Dr. Stuart Finch
Copyright © 2004 Jeanette Shiel
All Rights Reserved.
Last updated Tuesday, 13-May-2008 13:15:17 PDT
