My parents met at Cleveland Clinic in the 1920s. Both of them worked there. My mother, Elizabeth Tallman, was a nurse who scrubbed for Dr. George Crile Sr. She used to tell me about how they lined up beds in the hallway when Dr. Crile performed thyroid procedures.1 My father, Dr. Edward Sherrer, was an internist. Mom and Dad got married in 1927. Two years later, Dad was in the Cleveland Clinic Building during the disaster, when X-ray film ignited and released poison gas.2 He helped a colleague escape through a window and down a ladder.

Decades later, when I needed a mitral valve repair, I came to Cleveland Clinic. Did I feel a personal connection because of my parents? Of course. We’ve traveled around the world. Everywhere we go, people know about Cleveland Clinic.

It’s amazing.

 

Betsey Saunders and her husband, Don, met in Bermuda, got married in Ohio and lived in California, Switzerland, Belgium, Mexico and Spain before retiring to Colorado.

Betsey and Don Saunders standing in front of their front door, holding framed black and white photos of their parents

Betsey and Don Saunders hold photos of her parents, Edward Sherrer, MD, and Elizabeth Tallman. | Photo: Courtesy ofBetsey Saunders

Notes

  1. Cleveland Clinic co-founder George Crile Sr., MD, performed more than 25,000 thyroidectomies. Because of dietary iodine deficiency, enlarged thyroids were once common in the so-called “Goiter Belt” around the Great Lakes.
  2. The 1929 Cleveland Clinic disaster claimed 123 lives.