Wandering--so to speak--through my book collection recently, I came across this collection of short anecdotes by Lelias E. Kirby, M.D. Corncobs, issued by the Birmingham firm A.H. Cather Publishing in 1973, was Kirby's first book. Two more came out in 1975, Cotton Pickin' Coon Huntin' Country Boys [also A.H. Cather] and How Me and Amos Won World War I [Commercial Printing Company, also in Birmingham]. More information about that latter book can be found at the end of this post. Since Cather was a printing operation, I presume these books were self-published by Kirby.
So who was Lelias Kirby? He was born on October 28, 1895, in Etowah County. He graduated from the University of Alabama with a B.S. and then Emory School of Medicine in 1926. Before college he farmed and coached in high school. On August 19, 1927, he married Jean Harms, and they would have three children, two daughters and a son. The Sayers biographical compilation cited below noted that he was a retired physician-surgeon, a Democrat, a Methodist and had three hobbies: writing a column syndicated to weekly newspapers, speaker at clubs and conventions and making unusual walking canes.
From what I could gather, Kirby had hospital privileges at East End Memorial Hospital, which eventually became Medical Center East. According to the 1940 American Medical Association Directory, Kirby had an office in Birmingham at 5357 1st Avenue North, where his hours were 3-5 pm. That directory, the 1940 U.S. Census and the 1969 compilation all give his home address as 1 North 80th Street. You can see a Google Street View of the house from October 2018 here.
Kirby cited writing a syndicated newspaper column as one of his hobbies. A blurb on the back of this book written by the editorial page editor of the Birmingham News identifies Kirby as a frequent contributor to the letters-to-the-editor section of that paper. No specific sources of the book's contents are given.
Corncobs contains numerous short anecdotes and tales covering the topics indicated in the contents below. These writings express a fondness for the simplicity of his youth and in a few cases hostility to elements of the contemporary society. You can tell a lot from the titles: "Life Has Its Ups and Downs", "The Stove Wood Box", "The Blacksmith Shop", "The First Christmas" and "Everybody Talks about the Weather".
In "Mothers-in-Law" Kirby makes a defense of the species, including his own. "Should the Old Terminal Come Down?" is a poem about Birmingham's Terminal Railroad Station, which was demolished in 1969. In
"The Doctors say 'Phooey on ERA'" Kirby tells us exactly what he thinks about the Equal Rights Amendment: "No, we men like women as they are--we prefer that they use cosmetics and perfume rather than plumber and mechanic's grease to attract the opposite sex." In one of the rare essays related to his medical practice, "Snake Doctor", he recounts an amusing incident when he tried to administer some antivenom to a patient bitten by a rattler.
Early in the collection is "My Most Unforgettable Character", which refers to the Reader's Digest long-running article series, "The Most Unforgettable Character I Have Ever Met." In Kirby's case he wrote about Dr. George H. Denny, President of the University of Alabama from 1912 until 1936. Kirby gives several examples of Denny's kindness to him as an undergraduate in the early 1920's.
Kirby died on October 5, 1977, and is buried in Forest Hill Cemetery. His wife Jean died in 1985 and is also buried there.
Sources for this post include Ancestry.com and the book Who's Who in Alabama, Volume 2 [John W. Sayers, comp., 1969, p. 244]. A picture of Dr. Kirby, described as a "1977 press photo" is currently for sale on eBay.
Published in 1975, this book describes the experiences of Kirby and his brother in World War I. Read more about it in this essay by Mary Anne Ellis.
Source: Find-A-Grave
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