UPDATED 10/12/11:
Share a Tale – Lift an Ale – Celebrate Hal
On Sunday, November 13, at 5 p.m., friends will be gathering at Dave’s American Bistro to toast the colorful life of Doc Holbrook! All are welcome. For more information, contact Dr. Wendy Walker at wjwoo@his.com.
Daves American Bistro: 5500 Olney Laytonsville Road, Olney, Maryland 20832 (At the intersection of Brookeville Road and Route 108)
ORIGINAL POST: On Sunday, September 25, 2011, renowned Maryland vet Harold “Doc” Holbrook passed away of cor pulmonale related to chronic pulmonary emboli at the age of 83.
Harold "Doc" Holbrook
Recognized as the Maryland Horseman of the Year in 2001, for nearly 40 years, Harold Holbrook took care of virtually every animal in Montgomery County, ducks to donkeys, Holsteins to Holsteiners. He came to be known as the “James Herriott of Montgomery County,” a veterinarian, who — like his British counterpart — not only cured the animals’ ills, but also gave out healthy doses of good humor and common sense to their owners.
His career has followed the evolution of veterinary medicine in Maryland, from a time when there was just one veterinarian per county to present day Maryland with thousands of veterinarians and with as nearly as many specialists as there are ailments.
At its peak, his Town & Country vet practice had 6,000 to 7,000 large and small animal clients, a staff of between two and four veterinarians working with him, five full-time technicians and assistants plus other part-timers. Doc mentored numerous other vets, including Drs. Roger Scullin, Pete Radue, Chet Anderson, Rory Corolan, Walker and Will Engle.
Doc Holbrook served as president of the Maryland Veterinary Medical Association, was a founder of the Maryland Association of Equine Practitioners, and was for many years was chairman of the state veterinary board’s Ethics and Grievance Committee.
In an article by Ross Peddicord published in the February 2001 issue of The Equiery, Wendy Walker, who took over Doc’s Town & Country small animal practice in 1990, is quoted as saying, “I’ve worked with a lot of veterinarians over the years and he was one of the best general practitioners I’ve ever seen.”
Rory Carolan and Will Engle assumed his large animal practice, and Rory is quoted in the same article as saying, “He’d tackle any project, and if it involved research, he was always ingenious in trying to find a solution. He was loved by his clients, because he was always there when he was needed, night or day.”
Raised in College Park, the young Holbrook could walk from his house to any barn on the University of Maryland campus, which, as the first land grant agricultural university in the United States, had a large agricultural science program, and naturally he went on to study dairy husbandry. However, his brother, a medical doctor, persuaded him to take that animal husbandry one step farther, to become a veterinarian.
Holbrook graduated from the University of Georgia vet school in 1953, opening his Rockville practice one week later, named Town & Country because in 1953 Rockville was the edge of the suburban/rural population. “The plan was to deal mostly in dairy cattle,” recalled Doc in the 2001 article. “But the second call I got was to treat a pair of ponies for Hansen Watkins (Ex-MFH of Goshen Hunt).”
Eventually he worked for all the major farms in Montgomery County, treating beef cattle for Gordon Keys, dairy cows for Lawson King and horses for Harold Herman’s Red Oak Farm, then one of the state’s largest Thoroughbred breeding farms. He handled large horse operations like Pegasus Stables, Meadowbrook Stables, Avenel Farms, Al-Marah Arabians, Marshwood Farm, the Potomac Horse Center, and Susan Hansen’s Potomac Riding School. He had so many customers that were geographically contiguous that he would often just walk from one farm to the next. “I could write a book and it could be called ‘The Backyards of Potomac,’ Doc quipped to Ross back in 2001.
During the Potomac Fever crisis in the early 1980s, Doc Holbrook would load his truck daily with bags of fluids, running up and down River Road “all night long, trying to save horses’ lives. At first, we didn’t know what we were dealing with. That was probably the roughest time of my career,” he said.
Critical to his career and a full active partner in the practice was his wife, Joanne (known as Jody), who died in January of 2010 from complications related to cancer. In 2000, Doc Holbrook was paralyzed from the waist down in a boating accident.
Doc Holbrook is survived by his brother Dr. William (Bill) Holbrook, three children, nine grandchildren, and three great-grandchildren.
A viewing will be held on Wednesday, September 28, 2011 from 6:00 PM to 9:00 PM at the Muriel H. Barber Funeral Home, located at 21525 Laytonsville Road, Laytonsville, Maryland 20882.
The funeral will be held on Thursday, September 29, 2011 at 11:00 AM at the St. Andrews Episcopal Church, located at 4512 College Avenue, College Park, Maryland 20740. Interment will immediately follow at George Washington Cemetery, located at 9500 Riggs Road, Adelphi, MD 20783.
In lieu of flowers, the Holbrook family asks that donations be made to a cause close to Doc’s heart. Please make donations in honor of Dr. Harold H. Holbrook to the Miami Project to Cure Paralysis (Attn: Director of Giving) at P.O. Box 016960 (R48), Miami, Florida 33101-9844.
Click here to read more memories about Doc Holbrook from some of his many clients, including LuAnne Levens, Nancy Heil and Susan Hansen, plus photos from the 2001 Horseman of the Year party.
To contribute your own memories or photos, please e-mail them to editor@equiery.com
From Vicki Crawford, MFH, The Potomac Hunt & Hunter’s Trap Farm in Boyds
“Hal used to take care of my horses and cattle when we lived in Kensington and later on when we moved to Potomac. In 1965, I had a small black cat that I brought back back from Europe. One day he was investigating a hay field next door and had its leg nearly severed by a sickle bar mower cutting hay. I took it to a small animal vet in Rockville who suggested euthanasia. Distraught, I left with my cat and drove to Olney to see Hal. He promptly amputated the mangled leg and the cat became even more agile than before. Hal said that both dogs and cats do just fine on three legs!”
From Joan Spinner, Hyattsville
“I met Doc Holbrook when I was about nine, riding at Pegasus Stables where he cared for horses until it closed. I then started riding at Rock Creek Stables when it opened back in the late 50s. I was one of the barn rats that lived at the stables on nonschool days. They rented horses without guides and a couple of young men took the horses down off the trail and onto one of the park streets where one of them got hit by a car. The horse’s hind cannon bone was broken. Tony, the stable manager, and Doc Holbrook, decided to try to save him. The grooms rigged up a pulley system in one of the box stalls on the boarding side. Every day we kids would be in there massaging the horse and rooting for him. We saw a lot of Doc Holbrook during those weeks. Unfortunately he couldn’t save that horse.
“But years later I had a horse that had developed an awful cough when I moved him to a new farm. It was so bad I couldn’t ride. This was about 1995. Doc Holbrook was at that farm one day. I believe he was retired at the time and just there to take care of “a friend’s horse” and he took a look at my horse and told me to get him out of there right then. Well, I had to wait for a ride for him until the next day because I didn’t have a trailer, but when I took him back to his old place he was fine, without a cough. Doc told me my horse was probably allergic to some tree mold. As we chatted Doc told me the rings they had put up in that stall at Rock Creek were still there in 1995. I’ll bet they are still there today.
“I sold my horse to someone in Rising Sun and she said she had the same coughing problem. I told her about the tree allergy Doc had told me about and that she needed to move him away from the trees. I learned a couple of years later that the horse died at 24-years-old. Doc’s advise saved my lovely horse for many more years of life with me and others who loved him. I’ll miss Doc Holbrook. He was unique and an important part of my personal history as well as of the entire horse world of this area.”