The Early Years
My father, Glenn Doman had parents who were country people. They grew up in Hill Town, in Bucks County, a beautiful rural county in the southeast corner of Pennsylvania. My grandmother, Helen Ricker, came from a family that also had ties to the Pennsylvania Dutch community there. Helen was the first member of the family to go to university. She went to a well-known teacher’s college, West Chester State College.
My grandfather, Joseph Doman, came from a large Irish Catholic family. Glenn, their first child, was born on August 26, 1919. He was also the first grandchild and subsequently greatly spoiled by his family. And while it was well deserved, my father managed to continue to be spoilt by his family his entire life. His brother, Robert, followed two years later, and his sister, Helen Joy, a few years after that. Joseph Doman worked hard to move his family to the city of Philadelphia, and greater opportunity as soon as possible. My father worked hard to move back to Bucks County in the country. He managed to do that in 1963.
My grandmother, being a teacher, taught her son to read at the very early age of three. He continued to be an avid reader his entire life. He did not like school and found it boring. At the age of 14 he left his parents’ home and moved in with his Aunt Toss, my grandmother’s sister. Some members of the family say he moved away because he wasn’t getting along with his father. Everyone else agrees it was because Aunt Toss spoiled him even more than his mother at home.
Glenn joined the Boy Scouts, and this changed his life forever. He spent his summers on Treasure Island, a Philadelphia Boy Scout camp in Bucks County, in the Delaware river. He loved the Boy Scouts. He loved the community service, and he loved living in the country with nature. He trained himself as an ornithologist. John James Audubon was the father of modern ornithology, and my father consumed his writings and beautiful drawings. My father could identify dozens of birds and bird sounds, another reason he loved being in nature. He remained a Boy Scout for many years and achieved the level of Life Scout. He regretted never reaching the pinnacle of Eagle Scout. Decades later a child with severe brain injuries graduated from the Doman program and my father had the great honor of promoting his graduate to Eagle Scout.
In his Philadelphia neighborhood, my father met and befriended another Boy Scout, Raymond Massingham. My father always enjoyed being with Raymond’s family who were immigrants from England. Raymond had a kid sister named Hazel Katie. My father liked Raymond and his little sister. Hazel Katie, even as a young girl, thought that Glenn was, in the parlance of the day, “the cat’s meow.” Years later when my father was on leave from the army, he visited his best friend Raymond only to discover that Katie had grown to be a young woman.
In Philadelphia, Glenn attended Northeast High School. In those days, the school had reached remarkable heights. Its athletic teams were among the best in the city. Throughout his life he mentioned the great geniuses that lectured at his high school, including Albert Einstein. It is sad that today, however, an inner-city high school like Northeast does not have the distinction it once had. After Glenn graduated, he went to Drexel University and then transferred to the University of Pennsylvania, School of Physical Therapy. After his rewarding experience in the Boy Scouts, he decided to lead a life of service to others. This was part of his motivation for becoming a physical therapist. When he graduated as a physical therapist, he used his knowledge to help as many people as possible.
While working on his medical degree, Glenn assisted one of his professors in researching and writing an article for publication about emphysema. His professor had told him there was little or nothing that could be done for the condition. One of the professor's patients was a prominent businessman who suffered from emphysema. His respiration was so poor that he could no longer work. This was very upsetting for the gentleman. My father’s professor ordered Glenn to treat the patient, not wanting to waste his own time on such a helpless case.
During summer vacations my father had spent time as a lifeguard and had learned artificial respiration as part of his training. He figured he had nothing to lose by doing artificial respiration on the gentleman to help him to breathe better. The gentleman was thrilled when his ability to breathe improved and he even went back to work for some hours each week. After many months of this labor-intensive therapy, my father thought, why not get a machine to do this? He managed to set up an appointment with an engineer who said that he could make the respiratory machine. The date of my father’s appointment with the engineer was Monday, December 8th, 1941. The meeting never happened. On Sunday, December 7th the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. On Monday, instead of meeting with the engineer, my father enlisted in the US army. For the next four years the gentleman with emphysema and his physical therapy practice were far from my father’s mind.
Written by: Douglas Doman