The tribute relies on the text of a eulogy prepared for Dr. Fitch's funeral by Joseph C. Mitchell, an attorney, friend and noted orator.
Dr. Fitch (Jan. 15, 1825-Oct. 29, 1889) was an 1852 graduate of the Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine, Cleveland, who launched his practice in Iowa the same year --- three years after Lucas County had opened to Euro-American settlers.
Dr. Fitch was not a believer --- described as a "free-thinker" in the parlance of the time --- so funeral services were conducted on the afternoon following his death at the Mallory Opera House with members of the Chariton Odd Fellows lodge in charge. Here's the text of the obituary:
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Dr. Charles Fitch died at his residence in Chariton at 3 o'clock a.m. October 29th, 1889, in his 66th year.
Dr. Fitch came to Chariton in the year 1852 and was married here in 1853 to Miss Lucy J. Wescott by Rev. Robert Coles. He has ever since resided in Chariton, excepting a few years he spent in Kansas and in Keosauqua, Iowa.
Probably no one in Lucas county could die who would be so generally missed as Dr. Fitch will be. Certainly no man in Lucas county was ever so generally known to the people. It is scarcely an exaggeration to say that almost every man, woman and child in the county knew the old gray-headed doctor, and this is but natural when his personal appearance, his mental characteristic and his long residence and the successful practice of his profession in the county are considered.
His personal appearance marked him as above the average man. In his feelings, his hatreds, and his sympathies, he was intense. In his denunciations of those he disliked, he was bitter. In his friendships he was steadfast and true.
Probably no man in Lucas county was ever called to contact with so much human suffering and grief. Probably not a day of his life passed in Lucas county without witnessing them in some of their forms, yet his sympathies were never blunted or hardened. We have said he was bitter in his hatreds, yet as against one whom he might deem his worst enemy if his sympathies were appealed to, his hatred would soften and melt to tenderness.
No man in the county, indeed it is probably no man in southern Iowa, ever endured so much exposure. When he came to Lucas county, the practice he entered upon called him into Marion, Warren, Clarke, Union, Decatur and Wayne counties. Settlers were then few, roads few and bridges none. But as is usually incident to new countries, there was much sickness.
Dr. Fitch was the only doctor for this new and wild territory, but nature and education had fitted him for it. He was robust in constitution and intrepid in character and possessed of a skill in medicine and surgery equal to the best. He has long been known as heroic in his treatment of patients, and he was certainly heroic in his exposures and fatiguing journeys to reach them. In those early days, the nights were never so dark, the storm never so severe, the bridgeless streams never so swollen, that he would not at once get astride his horse and start across trackless prairies and through deepest woods to get to the bedside of a sick patient.
All this he did hundreds of times when he knew that compensation was uncertain and even improbable, for in those days when summoned to a sick bedside he never stopped for an instant to inquire about the probabilities of receiving pay.
As the county settled up, other doctors came and his regular practice finally became limited to Lucas county with consultation visits to adjoining counties; nevertheless, his exposures continued. Up until a very few years ago, he was in his buggy almost continually going from bedside to bedside and riding in sunshine and in rain, under July suns and in January blizzards, in the heat of the day and the darkness of night.
During the most inclement season of the year, he has been known to be so crowded in his business as not to take his clothes off for six weeks for rest. Truly, he was weather-beaten. The strongest constitution must finally give way. Exposure finally did its work. Near two years ago, after a cold fatiguing trip, he was taken severely sick and has never since been really well.
To the old settlers of the county he was the ideal doctor; to them he was attached by bonds of strength incident to a common endurance of pioneer privations. It is natural. He has visited their sick at midnight in their rude cabins and has wept with them over their dead loved ones, he has traveled through storms to reach them and alleviate their pains, he has eaten with them of their coarse food and cracked jokes with them across their rude tables. He sympathized with them in their troubles and joyed with them over their prosperity. His death will be looked upon by them as a personal calamity.
If the alleviation of physical suffering and the curing of malady and disease is doing good, here's no man in the county ever did more good that Dr. Fitch.
Dr. Fitch was through the Mexican war and did honorable service for the Union in the war of the rebellion.
He died full of years and full of experience. May his memory be long kept green in Lucas County.
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