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P. 18
GENERATIONAL
PERSPECTIVES
Continued from page 17
Photos (L-R)
Medical Staff Leadership of Sisters Hospital in Waterville
Maine, Dr. Jack Jackler seated on right.
Joan Ratner working in a Boston microbiology lab in the
early 1950s.
A few words about my uncle, Jacob (Jack) England and later to Germany.
Jackler, MD (courtesy of my cousins Jack was a member of the famed 69th Infantry Division, which
Margot Flowerman and Robert Jackler, MD):
made the historic first contact with the Soviet Forces at Torgan in
Our grandparents Abe and Sadie lived on Hester Street in New the heart of Germany. He was tasked with authoring the official
York City and ran a vacuum cleaner factory. They had two children, history for his unit. He fought in the famous Battle of the Bulge and
a son, Jacob (Jack), born in 1923 and daughter Joan born in 1928. rose to the rank of staff sergeant. Later in the army, he taught in the
By the time Joan was born, the family had moved to Brooklyn. northern city of Bremen.
Jack spent his middle school and high school years in Holyoke, After the service, taking advantage of the G.I. Bill, he resumed
Mass., where his parents moved in 1933. (When Abe’s printing busi- his education at Boston University. He received his medical degree
ness failed during the Depression, Sadie’s brother-in-law helped the from Boston University School of Medicine in 1951, serving his
couple set up a store and deli in Holyoke. An honor role student, residency at Boston City Hospital and the New England Medical
Jack won a local American Legion Oratorical Contest on the subject Center, where he had a U.S. Public Health Service fellowship in
“Personal Liberties as a Safeguard under the Bill of Rights.” He grad- cardiac medicine.
uated from Holyoke High School class 1940.
Jack specialized in internal medicine and cardiology. After an in-
After high school, Jack attended Mass State College, now called ternship and residency at Boston City Hospital, he became chief res-
the University of Massachusetts (Amherst). Jack was in the Army ident. He was also cardiac fellow at Pratt Diagnostic Hospital in
Service Training Program (ASTP) at Mass State leading to medical Boston. Later, he returned to Boston University as a member of the
school. In an era of “Jewish quotas,” Jack applied to medical school faculty. Tiring of both academic politics and Boston’s congested traf-
and did not get in at first. fic in the pre-freeway era, he and his wife, Lynn, sought an oppor-
tunity in a small New England College town. Jack opened his
World War II interrupted Jack’s education in 1943. He was briefly practice in Waterville, Maine, home of Colby College, in 1955.
assigned to engineering school in New York, but the program ter-
minated in about three months. He was then enrolled in infantry. Jack and Lynn moved to Waterville, Maine in 1955, where he spe-
He initially wanted to be a paratrooper. He did basic training in cialized in internal medicine and cardiology. Jack and Lynn devel-
Shelby, Mississippi and eventually shipped out overseas, initially to oped a circle of friends on the Colby faculty, joined discussions of
18 San Antonio Medicine • May 2017
