Drugs and Depression in Deadwood

Not bad on the lurid story title, huh. This is Tom Tabor in conversation with Wendy Walsh, Alan Tabor, Griffin Walsh and Jennifer Latimer.

Transcript:

Wendy: Did your family suffer any during the Depression, or not.

Tom: We lived out in Deadwood.

Wendy: Right, so just…

Tom: So, it didn’t hit out there. Gold mining was the thing. The main occupation of most people.

Wendy: So that wasn’t connected to any of the rest of the stuff?

Tom: No, it didn’t.

Wendy: So, the community wasn’t hurt by the depression.

Tom: No. I would say no. But I was just a kid.

Wendy: So, your father was…? What was your fathers job?

Tom: Pharmacist.

Wendy: Pharmacist? Ok, your father was a pharmacist.

Wendy: Now, who was the pharmacist in the family that was on….I’m trying to think of what drug it was… It was laudanum? What was the narcotic? There’s a story about somebody in the family having to set their own arm.

Alan: No that was a doctor that lived upstairs…

Wendy: A doctor, not a pharmacist, a doctor.

Alan: ...that lived upstairs to the uh...was there a drugstore in Deadwood?

Tom: Oh, yeah

Alan: Your mother [Frances] told me that story.

Tom: I don’t remember this story.

Alan: I was a good story! So, she had broken her arm somehow.

Wendy: This is your mom?

Tom: My mother?

Alan: Your mother.

Alan: Around near closing time at the pharmacy...so like 4 or 5...and apparently there was a doctor upstairs that was a morphine addict.

Wendy: Morphine.

Alan: And he came down to set the arm and said, “Ok,  I’m going to explain what I’m doing so if I nod out while I’m setting your arm that your dad [Floyd] could finish setting it.

Alan: I don’t think she was happy about that.

Tom: No, I wouldn’t think so. Let’s see if I can stay awake long enough…

Alan: ...to set your arm, yeah.