53 years of helping animals, people

Years ago, a veterinary patient showed up at Morganton Animal Hospital on North Green Street after getting hit by a car; fortunately, a quick X-ray showed no broken bones, and the patient — neither cat nor dog, but Morganton Animal Hospital founder Dr. Donald Hemstreet himself — was sent home.

Hemstreet said he had been riding his bike downtown when a woman in a Ford Pinto struck him. The longtime Morganton vet was mostly unscathed, but insult came after injury when the driver, at first horrified when she mistakenly thought she had hit a veteran, seemed less concerned when she found out he was only a veterinarian.

Hemstreet howled with laughter when he finished the story in an interview at his office. The vet’s sense of humor was evident as he reflected on a career spanning 53 years, describing it as a “rich, rich” experience that has shown him the fullness of humans’ experience through their animal companions.

Hemstreet, 83, was born in Chicago’s South Side and came to North Carolina by way of Florida and Alabama. After graduating from Auburn University’s College of Veterinary Medicine, Hemstreet worked briefly at a practice in Charlotte, but quickly grew a distaste for traffic and the pace of life in the city.

Hemstreet and his wife of 65 years, Joy, moved to Morganton to be closer to the mountains, and he first started seeing patients out of his garage in the Salem area in 1972 before buying the Green Street property and building the current practice.

Hemstreet said he used to do large animal calls in an old Volkswagen bus, often bringing his family with him, and he said he was paid with pies and even moonshine from the farmers he helped. It wasn’t out of the ordinary to show up at a remote farm and see a calf leg sticking out the back end of a heifer, tied to a tractor ready to pull, he said.

Hemstreet said at a certain point he had been “stomped, chewed, and whacked” enough, and he left large animal practice.

After all, Hemstreet’s heart was always with small animals — a love evident during the interview when the conversation was interrupted by a diarrhetic bulldog arriving for care and a call over the intercom about a cat in renal failure.

Hemstreet excused himself and emerged a short time later from an exam room with the bulldog and its owner.

“He’s feeling better already,” Hemstreet said as the pair walked out of the office. It was unclear if he was referring to the dog or the owner, but both seemed in good spirits.

Hemstreet’s love for animals is deeply connected to his love for people — a love that some contentious terms on the Burke County Public Schools Board of Education did not dim.

“People are so good,” he said. “If you sit with people, if you eat with them, if you work with them, it changes the game.”

Hemstreet said even when he is discouraged, he finds strength in his Catholic faith and viewing people, their animals, and the experiences in between as a gift from God — especially when it comes time to bring an animal’s life to a peaceful end.

“I just cry with them, I pray with them, I remind them that this animal’s life was a gift,” he said.

Hemstreet said he has come to believe that animal medicine is just as much for people as for creatures. For example, he said he once saw a feline patient whose owner was on hard times. The humans spoke for some time as the cat purred, and after a while, Hemstreet told the woman to just hold and pet the cat.

After a quiet few minutes, the woman relaxed, and Hemstreet asked if she felt better.

“She said, ‘I do,’” said Hemstreet. “If you’ve got a cat you can pet, you probably don’t need a lot of medicine.”