By Cecilia Nasmith/Today’s Northumberland
After 66 years in practice, Dr. Morgan Hubbel has decided to take early retirement March 5 – as he said in a message sent out to his patients last week.
Dr. Hubbel celebrated the 65-year mark for his practice last year, but waited until his 90th birthday earlier this month to make the move.
“We thought about it last year in March, but it just seemed too soon,” he said in his communique.
“Now it just seems a little foolish to be 90 years old and still showing up at the office on a regular basis.”
That was actually his fourth office.
He began his practice in Cobourg in a brick King Street West building he leased, across from CDCI West, with an upstairs apartment for himself and his wife Joan (a teacher at Burnham School). Signs from this early practice advertise his rates at $4 for an office visit and $5 for a house call. Though those were the days when you could get a quart of milk and a loaf of bread, he said in an interview last year, “probably people thought I was charging too much, even at that.”
They were eventually able to buy their own home with a practice on the ground floor – that big brick house at 197 Third St. Mrs. Hubbel left teaching behind to babysit the grandchildren, including future chiropractor Sydney.
“I thought I wanted to be a teacher, but in Grade 8 I did a Take Your Kid To Work with Grandpa and never looked back,” she recalled during that interview.
“In high school, I worked there in the summertime. I always saw how much chiropractic care can change people’s lives and help people who had not gotten better with other things.”
Dr. Leguard has also enjoyed the benefit of having a grandfather who is a sounding board.
“As a young doctor, with someone coming in in so much pain, it’s nice to say, ‘I’m going to have my grandpa take a peek and make sure we’re not missing anything.’”
Dr. Leguard said his example extends beyond medicine.
“That empathy for people – he always is so kind and giving when people aren’t acting that way back.
That’s what I try to channel when I have a patient like that – ‘how would Grandpa act in this situation?’”
Not long after celebrating 50 years in practice, Dr. Hubbel moved his practice out of the big brick house to an existing practice at 9 Elgin St. E. – thinking it might be a first step to retirement.
That didn’t happen, and he jumped at the chance to move to his current location and bring Dr. Stephanie Johnston aboard to join his practice. More recently, Dr. Leguard came along. The two of them will continue at Hubbel & Johnston at 163 Elgin St. E.
“I realize that with both Dr. Johnston and Dr. Leguard actively caring for my patients, I will definitely not be needed,” he said in his farewell missive.
“But that does not mean you should not miss me…and definitely not forget me!”
Dr. Hubbel credits regular chiropractic care for keeping him and his family healthy – in all his 66 years, he never missed a day at the office because of sickness. And he loves seeing the difference it has made for his patients.
“A couple of ladies I still see periodically first came to the downtown office 65 years ago,” he wrote.
“If you see me aimlessly wandering the streets looking lost and without purpose, please stop and say hello. I hope I will remember your name, but I will certainly remember your story.”
