Valley mourns ‘Doc’ Yates

MAT-SU — Friends describe him as a 24/7 doctor who still made house calls, sometimes without even being asked. He was a personal doctor and friend, a man of generosity. Ask just about anyone who’s been around Talkeetna any length of time and they’ll tell you that Dr. James Yates, affectionately known in the community as Doc, was all of this and more.

But Doc also was a man with a dream, a dream that will never come true.

Doc loved fast cars, and he loved to drive fast. He had hoped to set a world speed record with his class of car at the Bonneville Salt Flats near Salt Lake City, Utah.

Doc was 61 when he died May 10, 2013, in Branson, Mo. He was buried May 15 in Fairmount Cemetery in Jackson, Mo.

In addition to seeing patients at his Talkeetna Denali Medical Clinic, he also worked at Urgent Care at Lake Lucille in Wasilla.

“If you ever wanted to get him talking, just ask him about your health or his car, and he would talk,” said Wes Hudson, pastor of Talkeetna Baptist Church, where Yates sometimes attended services. “He was always glad to raise the hood and show us around the car whenever we had visitors.”

Memories of his kindness are well known throughout the Talkeetna area by those who knew Doc and considered him to be not only their family doctor, but also a friend.

“He was so kind to the family. We fell in love with the guy because he was such a personal, unusual kind of a doctor,” Hudson said.

Todd Basilone, owner of Mountain High Pizza Pie, recalled how Doc’s dream of setting a speed record was one of the town doctor’s favorite topics. Yates also raced at the drag strip in Palmer, and Basilone said when he bought a new car, he would keep the dealer sticker on it.

“It looked just like the car had come off the lot,” Basilone said, which, of course, fooled a lot of racers into thinking they were in for an easy win.

Both Basilone and Hudson recalled Doc’s generosity, noting that he did a lot of things anonymously for the community, even when he was ill and in a lot of pain, as he had been for the past several years.

“For years, he was in more pain than most of the people he was helping, but he never talked about it. He did a lot of things anonymously trying to help people, especially in his last hours, trying to make sure they’d have what they need,” Basilone said. “He never wanted any kind of a pat on the back for anything. He was a stand-up kind of guy.”

Basilone said that even when Doc was in miserable pain, “he still kept his practice and helped people, and I know he wasn’t getting paid most of the time. He was the kind of guy that really wouldn’t complain to anybody. He’d just kind of hole up. He’d complain about other things, though, just like the rest of us.”

Hudson remembers him as a generous man with his time and his talent for healing.

“He was quite generous toward us and the church,” he said. “He was so much a friend and a professional. That’s what made him so special.”

A few years back, Hudson said he had a severe reaction to antibiotics that he didn’t know he was allergic to.

“Doc found out. He didn’t wait for us to ask him, he was just there. Everybody knows how fast he drove. He was the one who figured out in five minutes (that it was an allergic reaction),” Hudson said. “Self-sacrifice, that would be the word. Self-sacrifice to be the town doctor.”

Basilone echoed that, noting that Doc would take part-time jobs in other locations so that he could keep the medical office in Talkeetna open.

“He would fly down to the hospital in Wrangell and sit in as resident surgeon so that the other person could take a vacation. He had experience miles long of running hospitals and doing surgeries,” Basilone said.

When Doc went to Wrangell, he “wasn’t in the kind of shape most of us want to be in for our daily lives,” Basilone said. “He was sick at that point. But he would go down there regardless of what he felt like, regardless of his condition.”

When he wasn’t busy seeing patients or making house calls, Doc spent many afternoons at Mountain High Pizza Pie reading from his extensive collection of leather-bound books. Occasionally, he could be found reading a medical book there, but most of the time, Basilone said, Doc read literature.

Basilone said there are quite a few stories about how Doc helped people.

“I was always intrigued by how willing he was to help people in the days before he started getting sick.” Basilone said Doc would often fly in to remote areas or go by snowmachine, most of time at his own expense. Often, Basilone said, people would take Doc vegetables, a fur hat, give him a handshake, “whatever the case was” in appreciation for his services.

Hudson believes the first time he met Doc was at his clinic on First Street in Talkeetna, though he acknowledges it might have been at Talkeetna Baptist Church. Basilone said he first met Doc in 1998 when he needed stitches after cutting himself at work.

“In that day, it was a lot different. Having a doctor in town who could help you was pretty nice,” Basilone said.

For both Hudson and Basilone, it was friendship from their first meeting with Doc, in addition to considering him their doctor. Until Doc left the area, he also was the only person Hudson would call on when confirmation of a death or a death certificate was needed.

When Lois “Granny” Lambie died recently, Hudson said, “I had to call troopers and ask them what to do, because I had always called Doc. He was a 24/7 doc. I had his cellphone number, that’s how I got ahold of him. He was my personal doctor and friend. You can’t replace that.

“Because of the nature of this area, he is more missed than any doctor in any area I’ve been in, because we’re far from the hospital and all these things.”

Scott Anderson is the editor of the Talkeetna Good Times.