Hand in hand: Dr. George and Elaine Pipes reflect on a lifetime of love, perseverance, and service to the osteopathic profession
Posted: September 25, 2024
For George, DO, ’76, and Elaine Pipes, the last 66 years have gone by in a flash. Since their marriage in 1958, they have walked through life side by side, hand in hand.
Today, they both work at ATSU on the Kirksville, Missouri, campus. Dr. George is a family medicine physician overseeing residents at Kirksville Family Medicine, and Elaine is the office manager at the Museum of Osteopathic Medicine. As newlyweds, however, they struggled to make ends meet.
They grew up near Milan, a rural community in northeast Missouri. Shortly after Elaine graduated from high school, they got married and worked in Kansas City, coming home on weekends to help on their family farms. While they shared a lot of love, they had very little money.
After several months, and expecting their first child, the couple moved back to the Milan area permanently to be near family. They found a small rental house and began setting up their home. But, like any young couple, they were in need of several items, including a stove for cooking and canning.
Elaine had her heart set on a stove she found at the Skelly Oil Company gas station in Milan, which sold a variety of household appliances. Called “the burner with a brain,” the large stove came with several burners that would turn down automatically if the stovetop got too hot. It also came with a hefty price tag of more than $400.
When Dr. George told Elaine they couldn’t afford it and they needed to save that money for a tractor, she was crushed. He instead found her an apartment-sized stove for $99.
“I’ll admit it, I really pouted about it,” Elaine says. “I would complain to my mother-in-law about it. She was the sweetest lady. I loved them, and they loved me.”
Then one day, as Elaine was complaining again about using that “awful” smaller stove instead of the burner with a brain, her mother-in-law threw a piece of paper at her and said, “Here, just win you one.” It was an advertisement from the local newspaper about a jingle contest that said, “Why would you like to have, in 25 words or less, a burner with a brain stove?”
“I told her, ‘Well, I just will!’” Elaine recalls, laughing.
For a pregnant and determined Elaine, this was a challenge. She went home, jotted down her jingle on the form, cut it out of the newspaper, and put it in an envelope. But she needed her last stamp for her brother’s birthday card.
The envelope laid on the kitchen counter for a long time, until finally, Dr. George walked by and asked Elaine if the envelope was supposed to be mailed. She told him yes, but how she didn’t have an extra stamp for the “jingle thing.” She then told him to just throw the envelope away because she had
since gotten over the challenge.
Seeing her disappointment and trying to be supportive, Dr. George told her he had 3 cents for a stamp and put the envelope in the mailbox. They went on about their day, and neither one of them said anything else about it.
Weeks later, on a hot summer day, Elaine was at her mom’s house, and Dr. George was out in the field farming with her dad. They were canning green beans in a steamy kitchen when Elaine’s mom noticed a strange car pull up. A man wearing a suit stepped out. Elaine recognized him as Russell Riggen, the funeral director of Riggen Funeral Home in Milan.
Riggen walked to the door and asked for Mrs. George Pipes. Elaine’s mom ushered him inside. When he stepped into the kitchen, he looked at Elaine and told her she better sit down. Her mind racing and expecting bad news, Elaine sat down and held her breath as she waited to hear what he had to say.
After several seconds of silence, he said, “You just won $5,000.”
Confused, Elaine looked at him and laughed.
Riggen then began to explain by reminding her of the jingle contest she entered. It was a contest across 48 states with one winner – Mrs. George Pipes. Suddenly, Elaine remembered Riggen was not only a funeral director, but he also owned the Skelly gas station. Since the form Elaine submitted came from his store, he was told to get in touch with her about the prize and setting up an award banquet.
Elaine and her mom were in complete shock. After Riggen left, they were barely able to contain their excitement, so they drove out to the field to flag down the men. They waved and honked the horn to get their attention. Dr. George was the first to see this display and, thinking his wife was in labor, jumped off the tractor to ask if she was all right. When Elaine told him the news, Dr. George grabbed her and gave her the biggest hug.
To this day, Elaine can’t remember the jingle she wrote, but she remembers every detail of the events that unfolded afterward. That $5,000 changed the course of their lives, although she never used the money to buy the burner with a brain. She kept using the apartment-sized stove for years afterward, and Dr. George bought a tractor to get their own farm started.
They farmed for several years and raised two children, Lori and Andy. As the rise of big machinery in farming began, Dr. George and Elaine quickly realized their farm would not be large enough to generate the income necessary for their children’s education. At the time, it was common for families to make a good living by farming in the summer and teaching in the winter.
Dr. George planned to get a degree to teach science at the Milan High School for a teacher who would be retiring in the next few years. In the meantime, Elaine got a job as a teacher’s aide. She took the kids to school with her, and Dr. George drove 100 miles round trip to Kirksville to attend Northeast Missouri State College, now Truman State University.
In two and a half years, Dr. George earned his teaching degree as planned, but without notice, the science teacher in Milan decided not to retire. This news left Dr. George and Elaine disappointed and uncertain of what they should do next. They decided to press on, and Dr. George taught one year at Kirksville Junior High while Elaine got a job at Truman as secretary for the dean of students.
As time passed, Dr. George’s interest in science grew. He had several friends from the Truman science program who began attending Kirksville College of Osteopathic Medicine (ATSU-KCOM) to become physicians. He decided he, too, would pursue medical school.
Dr. George hoped to attend ATSU-KCOM because of his connection to several students and his roots with osteopathic medicine. He and Elaine were both delivered by and grew up with doctors of osteopathic medicine (DOs). However, he was denied acceptance because of his age. At 34 years old, he was just past the cutoff.
Disappointed yet again, Dr. George continued teaching. He also started working part time in the evenings at Laughlin Hospital, which formerly stood across the street from ATSU-KCOM, taking care of animals in the research labs. After work, he would often stop by the ATSU-KCOM anatomy lab to visit friends.
One night, outside the anatomy lab, Dr. George and his friend, Sam Price, DO, ’76, who had also been denied acceptance because of his age, ran into a man wearing a long white coat. The man asked what they were doing and if they were students. Dr. George quickly explained they were visiting some friends who were students, and while they had applied to the program, they had been denied because they
were “too old.” The man responded, “Oh, is that right?”
About two days later, Dr. George and Dr. Price each received letters from ATSU-KCOM saying they were accepted, pending completion of two additional courses to meet the requirements. They later learned the man in the white coat was John Stedman Denslow, DO, ’29, a pioneer in osteopathic research and husband of Dr. A.T. Still’s granddaughter, Mary Jane Laughlin.
The rest of Dr. George and Elaine’s story is now history. Dr. George graduated from ATSU-KCOM as a DO, and Elaine spent 30 years as manager of his medical office until he retired from active practice.
Dr. George’s postgraduate education included an internship at Kirksville Osteopathic Medical Center and fellowship at Mallinckrodt Institute of Radiology, Washington University Medical Center in St. Louis. He also completed a U.S. Army Flight Surgeon Course with Academy Health Sciences in Fort Rucker, Alabama, as well as a scientific program and Federal Aviation Administration Aviation Medical Examiner Seminar with the Aerospace Medical Association in New Orleans.
During his years of practice, Dr. George served as part of a medical health team in La Paz, Bolivia, a lieutenant colonel and state flight surgeon with the Missouri Army National guard, and director of medical education and vice chair of the Board of Governors for the Kirksville Osteopathic Medical Center. The American Association of Physician Specialists named him a Distinguished Fellow in 1991 and Family Practitioner of the Year in 1995.
When Dr. George retired from active practice and began overseeing residents at Kirksville Family Medicine, Elaine joined the Museum of Osteopathic Medicine and became part of ATSU-KCOM’s interview process for selecting student applicants. She received the ATSU Employee Excellence Award in 2007 and honorary Kirksville Osteopathic Alumni Association membership in 2010. In addition to these honors, Elaine served as president of the Auxiliary of the American Association of Physician Specialists and, as a personal goal, learned to fly a plane at age 50, holding membership with the Missouri Pilot’s Association.
Flying became an outlet for Dr. George and Elaine during their years of maintaining a busy practice. Dr. George was always fascinated with flying, even as a child. During medical school, they saved enough money for him to take lessons and get his pilot’s license. Eventually, they were able to buy an engineless helicopter, fix it up, and fly it to nursing homes around the area to see patients. This was the first of several helicopters and planes they would own and restore throughout their lives.
“It’s been a wonderful, wonderful journey,” Elaine says. “It’s not been easy. We still have our farms, but we live in Kirksville now. We have a great family, both Lori and Andy are registered nurses, and we have three beautiful, independent granddaughters.”
In recognition of their lifelong dedication to ATSU-KCOM and the osteopathic profession, Dr. George and Elaine were asked to be grand marshals at the 2024 ATSU-KCOM Commencement Ceremony in May. Humbled by the honor, the couple led the procession of graduates into Baldwin Auditorium, holding hands every step of the way.
“We’ve had a good life, and we are as one,” Dr. George says. “We did it together and helped each other.”