Published: December 22, 2007 07:55 pm      

Dentist all smiles as he reflects on decades of service

KEYSTONE — After more than a half-century of asking his patients to “open wide,” Dr. Aubrey N. Jackson, a McDowell County dentist who has practiced in Keystone since 1961 has decided to put away his drill bits and extraction instruments and retire.

After decades of making smiles brighter and helping his patients with their dental concerns, Jackson said that he’ll miss the people most of all. “I have enjoyed the people I’ve met in this profession,” he said.

Jackson, 81, is originally from Lynchburg, where he started working in a dentist office when he was still attending Dunbar High School, the school that served African American students of the Lynchburg area. After graduating from high school, he came to Bluefield State College, but was soon drafted into service during World War II. He served stateside in the U.S. Navy at a hospital and returned to Bluefield to resume his undergraduate studies.

“I stayed with the dentist, Dr. Ernie Martin when I first came to Bluefield when he lived on Park Street,” Jackson said. “When I came back from the Navy, I stayed in a room above his office on Jones Street where attorney Joe Long’s office is now.”

Jackson earned his undergraduate degree at BSC in 1949, and was accepted into the dentistry program at Meharry Medical College in Nashville, Tenn. Meharry was founded in 1876 under the auspices of the Freedman’s Aid Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church. The college remains committed to improving health care of minority and underserved communities by offering excellent educational and training programs.

“Prior to my class at Meharry, the dentists were making vulcanite dentures,” Jackson said. “My class was the was the first class to use acrylic material to make dentures.’ He said that all dentistry was cosmetic when he started his practice. “About 10 to 15 years ago, it all shifted to everyone doing root canals and implants. Now, it’s moving back to cosmetic dentistry again just like it was when I was in school.”

“After I graduated from Meharry in 1954, I came back to Bluefield to go into practice with Dr. Martin,” Jackson said. “I worked with him for three years, and decided to go off on my own, so in 1958, I opened my own practice in Fairmont.”

Prior to moving to Fairmont, the opportunities seemed plentiful for the highly-skilled dentist, but he moved at a time when mine mechanization was reducing the need for manpower throughout the coalfields. When his Fairmont practice didn’t blossom as quickly as he had hoped, Jackson closed his Marion County office and headed to the Free State of McDowell.

“It was a bad time to move to Fairmont because of mine mechanization, but the entire state was undergoing a decline in population,” Jackson said. A dentist with a successful practice in Keystone told Jackson that he was moving, and offered the practice to the younger man.”

“There used to be people up and down this street and all these houses around here were filled,” he said. “At that time in 1961, the miners were all working down here because mechanization hadn’t taken over yet. It was a good place for my practice.”

The years of standing beside his dentist chair — now located in an office at 107 Main Street in Keystone — have had an impact on Jackson’s mobility. “It’s getting harder for me to get around, and if I stay in business, I’d have to invest in new equipment,” he said. Jackson said his chair and compressor date from 1975 or ‘76.

Although he was never interested in area politics, Jackson was active in his fraternity — Alpha Phi Alpha — and was with the great Edward “Duke” Ellington, both of the times he came to the area. “I succeeded J.C. Kingslow as treasurer of the fraternity,” he said. “I’m still treasurer.”

His wife is deceased but their three children all have successful careers. Aubrey Jackson Jr., is a minister in Radcliff, Ky., Kelly Jackson teaches at the School of Osteopathic Medicine in Lewisburg and Carl Jackson is a surgeon in Cleveland, Ohio. “They’re all motivated,” Jackson said.

He plans to open his office for three more days after Christmas to serve his patients, but after that he plans to be fully retired.

“I don’t have any special plans. I’ve never been too interested in travel. I’m just going to retire,” he said.

– Contact Bill Archer at barcher@bdtonline.com