In Burt Russell Shurly; A Man of Conviction, A Life in Medicine and Education, 1871-1950, Robert Vanderzee continues the story of the Shurly family, focusing on a physician and educator who, with the help of his mentor, chose medicine over the military life his father had planned for him. Vanderzee, the oldest grandson of Burt Shurly, relies on his extensive research into family archives, records, and scrapbooks to share memories of a man who married into the wealthy Palms family of Detroit, excelled in his career, and personally saved his alma mater from bankruptcy. Vanderzee chronicles Shurly's life and career, which included serving as a medical officer during the Spanish- American War, commanding a medical unit in France during World War I, and later leading the fight against diphtheria, typhoid, and tuberculosis while establishing the controversial Shurly Hospital. Interweaving local history, family letters, newspaper articles, and personal anecdotes, Vanderzee provides an intriguing glimpse into the life of a remarkable man who was gifted with intellect, enormous personal energy, and a keen sense of humor-and used those attributes to earn success for himself, his family, and his community during an fascinating period in Detroit history.

BURT RUSSELL SHURLY

A MAN OF CONVICTION; A Life in Medicine and Education, 1871–1950By Robert Vanderzee

iUniverse, Inc.

Copyright © 2011 Robert Vanderzee
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4502-7526-2

Contents

Preface...........................................................xiChapter One Born on the Fourth of July...........................1Chapter Two The Mentor...........................................17Chapter Three The Spanish-American War...........................30Chapter Four Family..............................................52Chapter Five Burt Shurly's Career................................88Chapter Six The Detroit College of Medicine......................92Chapter Seven World War I........................................97Chapter Eight The Detroit Board of Education.....................122Chapter Nine The Shurly Hospital.................................139Chapter Ten The Chronicles End...................................151Epilogue..........................................................155Acknowledgments...................................................160Appendix..........................................................163Bibliography......................................................165Notes.............................................................169Index.............................................................179

Chapter One

Born on the Fourth of July

If a man has a very decided character, has a strongly accentuated career, it is normally the case of course that he makes ardent friends and bitter enemies.

—Theodore Roosevelt

As the young doctor and viola, his wife of seven years, stepped out of Detroit's First Unitarian Church on Cass Avenue on that bright spring day in 1913, the funeral services of his uncle, Ernest Lorenzo Shurly, had just ended. The young doctor's mind was swirling. He had, of all things, just purchased his troubled alma mater, the Detroit School of Medicine, in an auction. And so, at the relatively young age of forty-one, he was the first and only man in America to own outright his own medical school. Adding to his burdens, he and his late uncle, a doctor of international repute, had been in the midst of converting the medical office building they shared on Detroit's West Adams Avenue into a badly needed hospital. Now his revered mentor and partner was gone.

This young doctor was Burt Russell Shurly, a man who would excel in the professions of both medicine and education. He was born auspiciously on July 4, 1871, in Chicago, to Augusta and Edmund Shurly, who had been transferred there from Buffalo by the US Army during the Civil War. After mustering out of the army, Burt's father decided the family would remain in Chicago for much the same reason that people today move to places like Phoenix, Orlando, or Silicon Valley: Chicago was a major growth center in the United States, probably growing faster than any other city had before or since.

Burt was just three months old when the Great Chicago Fire consumed the family home, his father's new business, and over half of the entire city. More than two hundred fifty people perished in the twenty-four hours it took the fire to devastate Chicago. Years later, Burt explained it all quite succinctly in a short autobiographical sketch: "I was born one Fourth of July, 1871, and never got over it."

Burt's family was financially ruined by this "Great Fire" and was forced, along with so many others, to seek temporary shelter in Highland Park, just north of Chicago, in what must have been squalid conditions. Nine years before all this happened, Edmund and Augusta had lost their three-year-old daughter, Edna, to diphtheria, and now, after a year in Highland Park, the dreaded illness struck the family again. Burt's brother, Arthur, age eight, succumbed to the disease. So now, with only an infant son left to comfort them, their daily lives were filled with a fear that Burt, too, would be taken from them by the disease. Burt, however, was spared, and his future accomplishments would substantially balance the ledger.

Burt was named after a good friend of his father, with whom his father had served while on active duty with the army at Fort C. F. Smith in the Montana Territory: Captain Andrew Sheridan Burt. A journal written by Captain Burt's wife, Elizabeth, tells a great deal about life at the fort in those days and often mentions her husband's friendship with Lieutenant Shurly. Burt Shurly's middle name was taken from Fort D. A. Russell, located near Cheyenne, Wyoming, where in 1868 his father finally reunited with Augusta after his harrowing adventures on the Bozeman Trail and his bloody battles with the Sioux.

Burt was born when the Shurly family lived in Chicago on Madison Street, in the house that would be destroyed by the fire. By the time Burt entered school, the family had returned to Chicago from Highland Park and was living at 3220 South Calumet Avenue. In those days, Calumet Avenue was the center of an excellent neighborhood. Burt was, as he put it in his brief autobiographical sketch, part of "a fine bunch of boyhood friends" who enjoyed snowball fights, baseball, and the usual childhood mischief: breaking windows, smoking cigarettes, and stealing pigeons. Burt went on to write that when some of these nefarious deeds were discovered, his mother, rather than applying a good spanking, put him to bed with nothing to read but the Episcopal Catechism. When his father came home after these sessions, he would talk with Burt late into the evening.

Burt thoroughly enjoyed his school days. He attended the Douglas School, and it was there that he first exhibited the extraordinary energy and personal popularity that would distinguish him for the rest of his life. He developed a wide range of interests, from butterfly and stamp collecting to baseball, pitching every Sunday for the Douglas School baseball team. He took piano lessons for one year but gave them up because the lessons interfered with outdoor sports. During his later years at Douglas, he organized the Douglas School Cadets and, as captain, learned the rudiments of infantry drill.

In 1882, when Burt was eleven, his father founded the Shurly Watch and Jewelry Manufacturing Company at 77 State Street. At that time, it was fashionable to give young ladies silver or gold thimbles as Christmas or engagement presents. During school vacations, Burt helped his father selling these and other articles of jewelry.

All this extracurricular activity, however, did not interfere with Burt's studies. He was a brilliant student, second in his class when he graduated from high school in 1888. Moreover, he liked his teachers, especially Miss Christian and the school's principal, Mr. Orville T. Bright, who were romantically involved. They apparently liked and trusted Burt, for they chose him to carry notes back and forth to each other during their courtship. Mr. Bright later became superintendent of Cook County schools and was sufficiently impressed with Burt's academic record to offer him a teaching position at Blue Island School after graduation, for the then-impressive salary of seventy-five dollars per month. Burt intended to go on to college, and he declined the offer.

During his high-school days, Burt developed a strong love for baseball and used his profits from cutting and watering neighborhood lawns to watch the Chicago White Stockings (later to become the Chicago Cubs). Years...