Prairie Lights

Please join us for a special Sunday afternoon event at 2pm with Mary Beth Sartor Obermeyer, who will read from her new book, When Winter Came: A Country Doctor’s Journey to Fight the Flu Pandemic of 1918.  Mary Beth is the grand-daughter of Dr. Pierre Sartor, a country doctor who traveled for miles across rugged rural Iowa in all weather to reach his patients, all with the help of 12 year old son Guido behind the wheel of the Model T (or at the reigns of the sleigh!).  Dr. Sartor was so accomplished that he was named General Practitioner of the Year by the Iowa State Medical Society.
Obermeyer, a journalist and author of three previous books, wrote When Winter Came after uncovering Dr. Sartor’s inspiring first-person account of treating patients during the influenza pandemic of 1918. Using Dr. Sartor’s memoir, family lore, and years of research on both his life and his medical practice with the help of Mayo Clinic, which which Dr. Sartor had established a close collaboration, Mary Beth Sartor Obermeyer has created a charming and fascinating account of his remarkable life and practice, and what life was like in rural Iowa over 100 years ago.