Professional Baseball Player, Physician. His life inspired a character in the 1989 American film "Field of Dreams." As a baseball player, he played in the minor league for seven years. In only one major league game, Graham played as a right fielder for the New York Giants on June 29, 1905. A left-handed batter, he returned to the minor league for three more years. After getting his medical degree at the University of Maryland and doing post-graduate work at Johns Hopkins, he started his medical practice in 1909. After gaining weight, he played halfback for University of Maryland's football team in 1904 and 1905. He was moonlighting as a ball player to pay his way to a doctorate, hence his nickname. Born the second of ten children, all of his siblings graduated from college. Relocating to Minnesota, he was on the staff of Rood Hospital in Chisholm for six years, then in 1915 became a physician for the county school system, a position he held for 44 years. During this era without remedies of modern medicine, he faced children with the flu epidemic of 1918, measles, diphtheria, typhoid, tuberculosis and polio. After a 13-year research project, he was the primary co-author of the article, "Blood Pressures in Children Between the Ages of Five and Sixteen Years," which was published in "the American Journal of Diseases of Children." The other two authors were Mayo Clinic physicians. He died in 1965 at the age of 89. The Graham Scholarship Fund, established in his honor, provides financial assistance to two Chisholm High School graduating seniors each year. His biography "Chasing Moonlight: The True Story of Field of Dreams' Doc Graham," was co-authored by Brett Friedlander and Robert W. Reising in April of 2009. In 2014, he was the subject of a Mayo Clinic Heritage Film documentary. His brother, Frank P. Graham was the president of the University of Carolina at Chapel Hill, U.S. senator and a mediator at the United Nations.
Professional Baseball Player, Physician. His life inspired a character in the 1989 American film "Field of Dreams." As a baseball player, he played in the minor league for seven years. In only one major league game, Graham played as a right fielder for the New York Giants on June 29, 1905. A left-handed batter, he returned to the minor league for three more years. After getting his medical degree at the University of Maryland and doing post-graduate work at Johns Hopkins, he started his medical practice in 1909. After gaining weight, he played halfback for University of Maryland's football team in 1904 and 1905. He was moonlighting as a ball player to pay his way to a doctorate, hence his nickname. Born the second of ten children, all of his siblings graduated from college. Relocating to Minnesota, he was on the staff of Rood Hospital in Chisholm for six years, then in 1915 became a physician for the county school system, a position he held for 44 years. During this era without remedies of modern medicine, he faced children with the flu epidemic of 1918, measles, diphtheria, typhoid, tuberculosis and polio. After a 13-year research project, he was the primary co-author of the article, "Blood Pressures in Children Between the Ages of Five and Sixteen Years," which was published in "the American Journal of Diseases of Children." The other two authors were Mayo Clinic physicians. He died in 1965 at the age of 89. The Graham Scholarship Fund, established in his honor, provides financial assistance to two Chisholm High School graduating seniors each year. His biography "Chasing Moonlight: The True Story of Field of Dreams' Doc Graham," was co-authored by Brett Friedlander and Robert W. Reising in April of 2009. In 2014, he was the subject of a Mayo Clinic Heritage Film documentary. His brother, Frank P. Graham was the president of the University of Carolina at Chapel Hill, U.S. senator and a mediator at the United Nations.
Bio by: Linda Davis
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