They began to come at sunrise. All day they came. The big brick house was filled. The yard was filled. A dozen women worked in the kitchen and served the food they brought. They whispered to the widow, Miss Louise, and to the pale children gathered in the living room. They talked among themselves about what he had done and what he had been. Doc was dead, and these were his people.

These mountain folks, these towns people, these sturdy tobacco farmers – all were his folks, his patients, many brought into the world by him. And now, on a cold February day in 1944, he was gone. All had come to pay him tribute.

Dr. Walter Herbert Cobbs, born to an aristocratic Virginia family, son of a confederate officer and United States Diplomat, graduate of the Medical College of Virginia, intern at Bellevue Hospital in New York, and resident of the New York Eye and Ear Infirmary, abandoned a lucrative medical practice in Shanghi, China, to return to the hills of Virginia and the general practice of medicine. There, he said, were the people of Virginia whom he would serve. He was sickened by the disease and death of the Orient, the callousness of those who lived there, and longed again for the red clay and hills of home.

On graduation from medical school and completion of his specialized training, Dr. Cobbs had initially located at Ridgeway, Virginia, in practice with Dr. Robert Mason. From there, he quickly succumbed to the entreaties of his brother, Flournoy Cobbs, founder of the British–American Tobacco Company, then centered in China, and joined him in Shanghi. There, he opened his offices in the International Settlement. His practice quickly became lucrative, but he found no satisfaction. Only a few years passed before he found himself aboard a Grace liner, bound for the ultimate destination of Ferrum, Virginia.

There, Dr. Cobbs succeeded to the practice of Dr. Poff, and his skill in diagnosis and treatment soon brought him a large number of patients. Shortly moving on to Rocky Mount, with its larger facilities and central location, his horse, Lucy, soon became a familiar sight from Chestnut Mountain to Endicott. As the roads improved, he turned to an automobile for longer trips, but never really abandoned his love for horseback travel.

The animals soon learned the way to the George Pearson home near Snow Creek, Virginia, for schoolteacher Louise Ballard Pearson had "set her cap" for the handsome new physician. In 1920, they were married by Bishop St. George Tucker at the Hotel Roanoke, in that nearby city. Dr. Cobbs soon bought an imposing residence south of Rocky Mount for his new bride. The house needed to be large, for their union was blessed with seven sons, five of whom survived infancy and remain alive today. The house still stands at Rocky Mount and is now the home of Ben Pinkard.

Standing six feet tall, with cold blue eyes, and a penetrating voice, Dr. Cobbs was known equally well for his dedication to medicine and a mighty temper. One of the few physicians available to the population of Franklin and nearby counties, he thought nothing of absenting himself from home for several days in order to travel on his rounds from farm to cabin, treating those ill with typhoid, whooping cough, scarlet fever, and the other scourges of the time, and bringing new lives into the world. In a day when medicine was still something of an art, he was a meticulous professional who kept up with new advances, and insisted upon absolute cleanliness.

Weather and safety meant little to him. Serving his fellow man meant everything. He was absolutely fearless. Franklin County was not always law–abiding in the twenties and thirties, but malefactors soon learned to the leave the Doctor strictly alone. His courage was backed by an ever–present Smith and Wesson 38–44 and the ability to hit a coin thrown into the air. Small wonder that attempts to rob him were quickly abandoned!

Coupled with his professional ability and dedicated service to his fellows was the Doctor's love for cattle and farming. In those days, our counties had no veterinarians, and he was as skilled at animal treatment as he was with human ailments. On many occasions, he combined a trip to examine a farmer's child with treatment of his mule or perhaps setting the leg of a favorite bird dog!

The years changed Doc little. His hair grew thinner, and he began to stoop a little. Still, he saw all his patients, traveling far and wide. He had delivered literally thousands of babies, marveled over the development of new sulfa drugs, and the instillation of an ambulance service to the Roanoke Hospitals. The war years caused him to redouble his efforts as younger physicians entered the service. No matter how tired or how long the way to a needy home, he never failed to answer a call.

On February 1, 1944, while gossiping at the Rocky Mount Coal Company office with a close friend, Allen Simpson, he remarked that his head hurt and slumped over, victim of a stroke. He died on February 6 at Lewis Gale Hospital in Roanoke.

The families still came. He had cured their ills and delivered their children. Many mountain people still bear the name "Doctor" or the name "Cobbs" as a tribute to him. They filled the large Rocky Mount Methodist Church sanctuary and overflowed outside in a demonstration of their love for him. These were not the rich who came to watch over his remains, but the poor, the needy, the little farmer, the old mountaineer, the white, the black – he knew their cabins, their shacks, their ills and woes, as intimately as he did the homes of the mighty, and he gave to them his love and service. He left little material wealth to his widow and children, but they will never forget the sorrow and loss caught in the faces of those who came, some walking all day, to pay their respects to the memory of this man, who could have been wealthy, but wanted only to serve them.

Dr. Walter H. Cobbs, after graduation from Medical College of Virginia.

Dr. Walter H. Cobbs as cadet at V.P.I. in 1890's.

Dr. Cobbs' first office in Rocky Mount. The building burned in 1936. The waiting room was shared with Dr. Davie E. Stone, Dentist.

Mrs. Louise P. Cobbs, "Mrs. Doc", driving family's 1928 Hupmobile, designed to hold the 5 boys who survived infancy.

Dr. Cobbs (in driver's seat) with Carleton Angle, Rocky Mount businessman, about 1919, in Dr. Cobbs' new Overland (?) car. Taken at corner of new Angle Hardware block on Franklin Street, Rocky Mount.