Doc Puumala, Cloquet's old-school doctor, dies at 88

With the passing of "Doc Puumala" last weekend, Cloquet lost its last country doctor, a man who made house calls and didn't worry how long an appointment lasted.

Ricard Reino Puumala died Saturday, Aug. 19, at the age of 88. At one time, he and his wife, Barbara, worked at the family clinic with both of his parents, Reino and Marie Bepko Puumala.

His daughter, Dr. Vicky Heren, said Ricard (and both his parents) were general practice physicians. They did it all: pinning hips, removing gallbladders, performing appendectomies and delivering hundreds of babies.

"That era of physicians, that's just what they did," Heren said. "They were on call 24/7. Medicine was his passion. He loved the intellectual part, the puzzle part and the people."

She recalled a story her dad told about a man who mangled his hand in a shotgun accident. The surgeon told him they would have to amputate. The man begged for another option.

"My dad said, 'We'll save what we can.' And he did save part of it," Heren said. "He really cared. He was willing to go that extra yard because of that, and because he could handle the challenge."

In a 2014 interview, Ricard talked about how his parents first came to northern Minnesota from Chicago: his father saw a bulletin board note at the University of Illinois asking if a Finnish-speaking doctor could come to Cloquet.

Reino spoke fluent Finnish, his parents were born in Finland, so he and Marie moved here with 18-month-old Ricard. They were welcomed by the many Finnish-speaking people in the area.

Ricard grew up with conversations around the kitchen table on the latest diseases, with parents who were always leaving to go deliver a baby or respond to some other emergency call. He knew from a young age that he wanted to be a doctor.

Ricard met his wife, Barbara Meyer, at the University of Minnesota medical school. After getting married and graduating, they came to Cloquet and worked at the Puumala Clinic. When the demands of raising four children became too much, Barbara quit the family practice, then worked as a doctor at the state hospital clinic in Moose Lake for close to 25 years.

In the meantime, Ricard was joined at the clinic by his daughter, Dr. Vicky Heren, as well as Dr. Vicki Anderson. Heren said she spent the bulk of her career at the Puumala Clinic. It was a nice little clinic, she said, and her dad was a good source of information as she began her career there.

"You could yell from one end of the building to the other - it had a different feel," she said. "And we had a good relationship, so not a problem [working together]. It made going on family vacations difficult, though."

Heren said her dad was very dedicated to his patients and didn't think himself above anyone else.

"He genuinely liked people, and would sit and talk about fishing, hunting, whatever," Heren said. "He didn't want to be better than anyone. He also made house calls - he was a country doctor."

The old-school doctor wasn't afraid of technology, Heren said, and adopted the computer and other technology as it came. But he didn't like what he called the "industrialization of medicine" that came from the insurance industry.

Still, he famously did have at least a couple insurance codes memorized. Those would be the codes for "pain in the butt" and "idiot."

Ricard continued at the Puumala Clinic until it closed in 2005, due to the demands of "unfunded federal mandates," Ricard said a decade ago. He then finished his career at the Raiter Clinic, retiring in January 2014. He retired as county coroner later the same year.

Barbara died in 2017.

Heren said she got to be deputy coroner under her dad, who followed his own father as county coroner.

"I got to go on a few cases ... it was definitely memorable," Heren said.

Puumala was smart, funny and unafraid to speak his mind, appreciating his own ability to shock people with some of the stories he told, like the pregnant woman who came into the hospital to deliver with the baby already arrived, in her underpants. She hadn't dared tell her husband for fear he'd drive off the road.

Two of Ricard and Barbara's four children became doctors, although Vicky was the only one to work at the clinic. Michael specialized in neurosurgery. He has two boys in college who are thinking about medicine.

"So there may yet be another generation of Dr. Puumalas on the horizon," Heren said. "Stay tuned."

A visitation takes place 5-8 p.m. tonight, Friday, at Our Savior's Lutheran Church in Cloquet. Visitation continues there at 10 a.m. Saturday before an 11 a.m. service. Find details and more about Ricard Puumala in his obituary on Page 14 and other funny stories in Pete Radosevich's column on Page 7.