Evarts G. Loomis - Early Career

Early Career

It was at Haverford that Evarts as a third-year biology major happened to pick up a pamphlet about the career of Albert Schweitzer, whose life was dedicated to ameliorating the suffering of natives who had no access to skilled medical care. Evarts was taken by his concepts of "welt-anschauung" (world view) and "reverence for life." That night, he picked up a phone and informed his parents that he was shifting to pre-med.

World War II intervened before Evarts could begin pioneering a therapy of the whole person. The "bamboo curtain" also cut off the dream of Evarts and his wife Verna, an RN, to become medical missionaries in China. Evarts wanted his war service to focus on saving lives, and he served as a surgeon with the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Association in Algeria. Bored by a lack of surgical cases, he requested and was assigned by the Friends Ambulance Unit (Quaker) to the bombed-out city of Tenchung, China. There, in a converted ancestor worship temple, he directed a hospital and clinic and, along with an international medical team, treated civilians, as well as Chinese and American military personnel.

After two years, the Quakers turned over the work to the Chinese, and Evarts returned home to his wife and young daughter Margaret, both of whom came into his life while in Newfoundland. Since they had fallen in love with the state while studying Chinese at Berkeley, Verna had already arranged for Evarts to practice in Montebello, California, where their second daughter Laura was added to the family. Evarts also knew he needed a place where new ideas would be more accepted than in the more conservative parts of the US.