John Schmidt 
John Schmidt at the Saranac Lab Born: c. 1898
Died: February, 1978
Married: Bertha ("Honey") Schmidt
John G. Schmidt was a doctor, a hematologist, who lived at 115 Park Avenue in Saranac Lake. In 1958, he served with Dr. Francis B. Trudeau in the American Management Association's Life Extension Examiners, a medical clinic associated with the AMA Academy. 1
Dr. Schmidt is third from the left in this photograph of doctors at that Saranac Lab, undated.
Historic Saranac Lake Collection, 2009.8.1. Gift in Memory of John SchmidtHe came to Saranac Lake for the cure. Bill McKently recalls that "the highpoint of his life was when he met Einstein in Saranac Lake, possibly at the lab at the Sanatorium. He looked up a long set of stairs, and there he was, looking like a god."
Nurse Helen Croke worked as his assistant, as shown in photos in Historic Saranac Lake's collection.
Adirondack Daily Enterprise, February 20, 1978
John G. Schmidt
SARANAC LAKE - John G. Schmidt, 76, of 115 Park Ave., a resident for 48 years, passed away late Thursday evening at the General Hospital. He was born in Saxony, Germany, the son of Max and Olivia (Von Knighthardt) Schmidt.
Mr. Schmidt had been a resident electron microscopist for the Trudeau Institute. He retired in 1966.
Survivors include his wife, the former Bertha Home, and a sister in Germany.
He was a member of the Saranac Lake Medical Society and the American Society of Electron Microscopists.
Funeral services were held Saturday afternoon at the Fortune Funeral Home, with the Rev. William Vigne officiating.
Cremation was in Troy
From "They Rebuild Men" by Eleanor Dayton Partial transcription from a partial photocopy, page 10, source unknown, apparently 1941.
They're the staff of the Saranac Laboratory. Desiring to take their place in the world despite the handicap of tuberculosis, they have become research workers, whose honest and often spectacular attainments are internationally known.
They are quietly at work on the research problem of tuberculosis and of silicosis and other dust diseases. They are quietly proving, also, though they're unaware of it, that Saranac Lake is an A-No. 1 spot for rehabilitation of the patient.
They've all had tuberculosis. They're united in their interest in its care and cure. Not doctors of medicine, they all see in laboratory work a way of further defeating a disease which each day, through their efforts, grows less formidable.
They're largely self-taught, though as one learns his profession, he gives his help to the next.
. . .
John Schmidt washed glasses at the lab for a while, and did it well. He happened to have been an importer previously, but that didn't interfere with the skill with which he used his hands. He was a watch-maker by avocation. too.
He also learned everything he saw, so when there finally was need for a permanent clinical diagnostician, he was elected. He's passed his exams as a technician, and has taken over as a full-time job that which was formerly done by medical students and doctors here merely transiently. #
Adirondack Daily Enterprise, October 14, 1963
STRANGE ACCIDENT
John Schmidt, 60, a hematologist with offices in the Saranac Laboratories was seriously injured about 7 o'clock Saturday night when a wheel came loose from an approaching car and crashed through his windshield and out the rear window.
Mr. Schmidt was treated by Dr. Warriner Woodruff at the Saranac Lake General Hospital for eye cuts and removal of ground glass and then removed to a Plattsburgh hospital for treatment by an eye specialist. Mrs. Schmidt is in Saranac Lake General Hospital suffering from severe face cuts.
Mr. Schmidt was approaching Saranac Lake on Route 3 (B-dale-Saranac Rd.) and the car operated by Robert Skeels of Bloomingdale was traveling in the opposite direction when the wheel broke loose.
Comments
Footnotes
1. Adirondack Daily Enterprise, March 28, 1958, p. 1
