By Dennis Young with notes from Brenda Cunningham McGregor
For almost 90 years, there was a Cunningham practicing medicine in Carman. Many residents were either brought into the world by one or saw one at the hospital or clinic. Let’s see if you remember them.
Dr. Harry Cunningham graduated from Queen’s Medical School in Kingston in 1885 and came to Carman as a young doctor, replacing Dr. Tom Wilson. After two years, he left for postgraduate studies in Edinburgh, where he obtained an additional degree in 1888.
He married Alice Meikle, and together they had three children — Fillis, Dorothy (Mrs. Paul Hiebert) and Ken. Harry first practiced from his home, which included a small office, but later built a separate practice at 72 Villard Avenue (the former Adult Ed location).
In those days, house calls were standard. Harry kept a horse in his barn and hired a driver to take him out in a sleigh during the winter and a buggy in the summer. To stay warm, he wore a heavy buffalo coat, a hat and gauntlet-style mitts — the coat is now on display at the local museum.
He partnered with Dr. R.L. Morrison in 1893, Dr. John Brown in 1898, and later with his son Ken in 1930. Harry practised for 56 years and received a community honour for his service before passing away in 1941.
Dr. Ken Cunningham completed his medical degree at McGill University, followed by three years of internship at Montreal General Hospital and postgraduate studies in London, Edinburgh and Vienna before returning home. He married Helen Bridge in 1931, and they had one daughter.
Known as a quiet and compassionate physician, Ken often hosted medical students to give them a taste of rural practice — long hours, late-night calls, and weekend emergencies that may have given them second thoughts about small-town life.
He played a key role in replacing Carman’s aging 1905 hospital with a new $175,000 facility (equivalent to about $4 million today), which opened in 1949. The new hospital — now O’Brien Oaks — featured cutting-edge technology for the time, including an x-ray machine, iron lung and incubator.
In 1963, Drs. Cunningham and North merged their individual practices to form the Carman Medical Group. Ken’s Main Street office was renovated to include a spacious waiting area, three private offices, six soundproof examination rooms and a lab. The clinic remained busy well into the 1990s. Drs. Tjaden and Regehr later joined the group.
“Over the years, my dad went to patients’ homes by various means,” daughter Brenda recalled in a 2017 article. “An example of his devotion to his profession occurred the morning after the March 4, 1966, storm that shut down Carman. He couldn’t get out of the house because both doors were completely blocked. The only sign of his car in the driveway was the tip of the antenna sticking out. So, he took the window and screen out of the front door, shovelled the snow into the house until he had room to crawl out, got out his old snowshoes from his youth, and snowshoed to the hospital for rounds.”
In 1975, two years after retiring, Ken was named Carman’s first Citizen of the Year in recognition of his 47 years of service. He was a strong supporter of the Man-Dak Baseball League, the Dufferin Historical Society and the Carman Golf Club. He passed away in 1977 at the age of 75.
