Catholic Telegraph
Friday, May 1, 1987

Dr. C. Richard Schroder

There isn't much 'Doc' Schroder hasn't seen in is 30-plus years as camp
physician at Fort Scott. He's treated just about everything from compound
fractures to lovesickness.

Dr. C. Richard Schroder is a soft-spoken, gentle man, who adamantly
refuses to disclose his age, even though his birthday is celebrated with
great fanfare each year at camp. "In our society people think of you one
way the day before you turn 65, and the day after you're suddenly too
old."

Whatever his age, he never seems to stop moving -- checking the stitches
in a seven-year-old's chin, bandaging a sliced toe, examining a case of
poison ivy or dramatizing an anecdote. He also never seems to stop
talking. All in a manner so relaxed that the activity is almost
imperceptible. "Informal" he calls it.

"For most of these kids it is the first time they've gone to a doctor by
themselves. They're proud of that, you can see it in their faces." They're
also a bit frightened, he added, "They'll ask you straight out if they're
going to get a shot."

Dr. Schroder declares that the more than a generation of Fort Scott
campers he's known are very much his "family." Some of the campers become
so attached to Doc they manage to come up with enough illnesses to visit
him every day of the camp session. Some remain close friends and return as
his assistants when their camping years are over. Doc boasts, without
prompting, of his former assistants who are now prominent medical
specialists.

A man of Doc's experience has had his share of homesick children. So much
so he's got an effective cure for most cases: "a lot of tender loving
care, some medicine, and keep the kid close to his counselor and other
kids."

The only years Dr. Schroder remembers not being at Fort Scott were while
he was in the military.  Before that he'd been a camper and, while in
medical school, the physician's assistant. More than 30 years ago he began
coming to Fort Scott full time during the summers, also serving on the
staff of Longview State Hospital for many of those years.  Dr. Schroder,
retired from the medical staff of Xavier University, is honorary chairman
of the Fort Scott Camp 65th Anniversary Committee (Chairman: Dr. Dan
Averbeck).

"Sometimes when I wake up in the morning I wonder what I'm still doing
here," he says.  But he comes back year after year. "Nobody ever says
anything, so I just show up."