Moser brothers to be inducted into Hall of Fame

Eighty years ago, a young doctor from Powhattan opened a medical practice in Holton, and he was joined three months later by his younger brother, also a doctor.

The next year, they grew their practice into a hospital.

“They wanted a hospital,” the late Dr. Ross Moser once said of the ambition of his cousins, Dr. Roy Moser and Dr. Ernest Moser. “It seems that nearly every hospital in this area started with the desire of one or more doctors wanting to have a place to do some of the necessary operations that could not be done in an office.”

But it wasn’t justs the efforts of the Moser brothers to build a hospital in Holton that made them important names in the city’s history. It was their commitment to the people they served over the 35 years they worked as doctors in the Jackson County community — house calls at all hours, delivering hundreds of babies and making sure their patients were given the best medical care possible.

That’s why Dr. Roy Moser and Dr. Ernest Moser are joining the Holton/Jackson County Chamber of Commerce Hall of Fame in February — not only for providing the foundations of Holton Community Hospital, but for the community impact they themselves had.

“Doctors Moser lived and worked in a time when medical care wasn’t just measured by regular office hours, but included time at the hospital and even house calls. Time had no boundaries,” said Holton City Commissioner and family friend Dan Brenner. “The modern-day Holton clinic and Holton Community Hospital may not be what it is today without the foundation provided by Ernest and Roy Moser.”

The Moser brothers — two of three sons of Emile “Heck” and Nettie Hart Moser — were raised in Powhattan. Roy was born Nov. 16, 1904, and Ernest, Jan. 20, 1909. They graduated from Powhattan in 1922 and 1927, respectively.

Roy had gotten a degree from Emporia State Teachers College in 1926, then taught at Delavan, just east of Herington, for a year before he decided to go to The University of Kansas to study medicine. He graduated from The University of Kansas Medical School in 1932 and interned at St. Mary’s Hospital in Kansas City before opening a general practice in Westmoreland.

Following in his big brother’s footsteps, Ernest attended KU and graduated from KU Medical School in 1934 and also interned at St. Mary’s Hospital. The next year, he started a general practice in Wetmore.

In February of 1937, Ernie opened a practice in an upstairs office on the east side of Holton’s Town Square; three months later, Roy joined him. However, they wanted to offer the Holton area more than just a general practice, but with the country still in the throes of the Great Depression, and with their short time in practice, they didn’t have enough money put away to open a hospital.

The next year, the brothers pooled their money, bought a house located at 418 W. Fifth St. from Ed Richey for $490 and spent $1,000 remodeling the house into a hospital. The remodeling work was done by several area residents, beds were surplus from a hospital in Marysville and bedside tables were built by a Wetmore man.

On May 12, 1938, the brothers opened their hospital to the public — and all for less than $1,500.

They were advised by Holton attorney Albert Cole — who later was elected to Congress and served as administrator for the Housing and Home Finance Agency, now the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development — to make the hospital a non-profit organization, so that any profit made by the hospital went back into the hospital for building and equipment upgrades.

That proved to be a good move — the hospital was eventually taken off the county tax rolls in 1945 through the efforts of Ernest and Holton attorney Don Sands — as the hospital was experiencing growing pains. In 1940, the brothers had an addition built with new patient rooms, a nursery and an elevator.

Not long after that, World War II broke out. Ernest joined the military, and Roy stayed behind to take care of the hospital, driving all over the area to help deliver babies for the duration of the war. Ernest returned home in 1945, and a new clinic office was built with an enclosed pharmacy.

At that time, the brothers decided to remodel their office area into more patient rooms. That gave the hospital a total of 21 beds.

The hospital grew again in 1948 when the brothers welcomed their cousin, Dr. Ross Moser, who had graduated from KU Medical School the year before, to the staff. The Mosers continued to see the need for better hospital facilities and more room, and with some financial contributions from all three doctors, the first structure of the Holton Hospital was built.

The Mosers’ practice grew with more surgical options and more deliveries, and plans were made to add a wing to the hospital in 1954. The hospital’s old original frame building was razed after the wing was completed, save for the basement.

“We were able to do more needed surgery, and people were grateful for that,” Ross said. “It meant that they could have their operations in their home town or close by if they were in the adjacent rural area.”

Another addition was built in 1957, with a second, larger waiting room, four office examining rooms, an emergency room, a laboratory and an eye-examination room. In 1965, the Moser brothers and their cousin were joined on the staff by Dr. James C. Seeley.

However, things began to change with the advent of Medicare. In 1966, Ross said, Medicare “put its foot in the door” and “was going to multiply the paperwork and the restrictions. The hospital became too much of an administrative burden for us, along with our practice.”

It was then decided to give the hospital to the City of Holton. At that time, the hospital was completely free of debt and had $80,000 in the bank, along with a checking account for daily operational expenses. All of that was given to the city, which created a three-member board that hired a full-time administrator to oversee operations at the hospital, now known as Holton City Hospital.

From that point, Roy and Ernest slowed their workload, eventually coming to the office on alternating days. They decided to retire in 1972, leaving Ross Moser and James Seeley the only doctors covering the county full-time.

“I am not sure why, but house calls dropped tremendously,” said Ross, who retired in 1985. “Perhaps people thought we would not have time for house calls with only two doctors instead of four.”

Ross Moser and James Seeley sold the clinic building to Frank Gilliland, a registered pharmacist at the clinic, in 1985. Gilliland, along with future Holton City Hospital doctors Carlos Chavez and Joel Hutchins, in addition to Ross Moser, have also been named to the Chamber Hall of Fame.

Dr. Ernest C. Moser died Dec. 27, 1987, at a Topeka hospital, following an illness, and Dr. Roy H. Moser died May 19, 1989, at a Sabetha nursing home. Both are buried in Holton Cemetery.

But the impact the two brothers had continues to live on in the form of Holton Community Hospital, a name it assumed in 1990 before opening a newer, larger facility to the public on Jan. 4, 1999. Indeed, the words of former Holton Recorder editor Will T. Beck, printed sometime during the 1950s, were more than apposite to the impact the Moser brothers had.

“I can’t imagine how this community could continue to subsist without its present hospital facilities,” Beck wrote. “I well remember the day when we had no hospitals, when all types of illness were cared for in homes without the equipment that makes surgery a much less dreaded experience today. We might wonder how we all managed to live through that period, to enjoy our old age, but we did.”

Note: Some information and quotations used for this article were taken from “Medical Practice of Doctors Moser,” written in 1987 by Dr. Ross Moser and published with assistance of the Kansas Historical Society.