On Nashua: Decades later, eye doc still laser focused on his patients

Meet Carl Quimby, Nashua's optimistic optometrist going on 68 years in practice. Through a so-called blurb that appeared in a 1906 edition of a now-former Nashua daily newspaper, a local optician named Babbitt fairly excoriated his patients for their apparent inability to locate the good doctor's new offices, into which he had moved weeks earlier. Admitting that it was possible "that it was our fault" that the patients couldn't seem to find the new location, Dr.

Babbitt decided to "put before you ...



a 'reader'" and keep running it in the newspaper until everyone finally got it. "Our new location is at 277 Main St., the next place south of the Burns Block, just north of the Acton railroad, and opposite the City Coal Company's office," Babbitt wrote.

Fast forward a half a century, and we find a newly-minted optometrist, fresh out of military service, coming home to Nashua to open his own practice in the same 277 Main St. office building that Dr. Babbitt helped his patients find just over 50 years ago.

But by then it was owned by Robert Earley, a well-known city attorney who, according to one of his first tenants, was not only an honorable, virtuous man but one of the most generous people he'd ever met. That would be another optometrist, Dr. Carl Quimby, likely one of the most recognizable names in Nashua optometry history who is no longer at 277 Main St.

, for the simple reason the place no longer exists. What does exist -- and thrive -- is Quimby's current practice at 163 Amherst St., the second of just two locations he's occupied since he hung out his first shingle at 277 Main St.

sometime in the fall of 1957. That was a decade after he graduated from Nashua High School and just a couple of years after he earned his degree at the Pennsylvania State College of Optometry. At 95, his schedule these days isn't filled from morning to evening as was the case in recent decades, but Quimby still does spend a fair amount of time in the exam rooms, where patients can not only get a diagnosis for new glasses or a referral to an ophthalmologist, but a healthy dose of conversation -- both eye-related and "how's the family" or "what's new with you?" chit chat sorely lacking from many medical offices these days.

Leading a visitor through what he calls "the maze" -- the twists and turns left and right that eventually lead to an unoccupied exam room -- Quimby eases himself onto a stool and asks how he can be of assistance. Prodding, the visitor quickly realizes, isn't necessary. "I got COVID last year, it hit me hard .

.. did a job on me," he said, adjusting himself on the stool.

He moves on to how he got here in the first place. Born in Pennsylvania, his parents moved the family to Nashua and bought farmland on Tinker Road just about the time the Great Depression hit. "No electricity, no (running) water, no (central) heat, no radio and .

.. horrors! no TV," he said with a laugh.

They did have a gas-powered generator, Quimby recalled, which they fired up every few days to recharge a series of batteries that offered temporary lighting. But, he added, the family had to occasionally sacrifice that luxury to the chicken coops -- if the laying hens thought it was still daylight they'd produce more eggs. Quimby attended the former Shattuck Street School before moving over to Mt.

Pleasant. As was the case for generations of Nashua kids, the next stop was the former Spring Street Junior High School, then, of course, Nashua High School, long before an NHS South and NHS North were on the radar. Sometime in the 1960s or early 70s, as Quimby's practice was humming along, he was "introduced to the school system," as he puts it.

A couple of colleagues, one of whom was the late Dr. Elvin Haynes, approached Quimby asking if he'd be interested in taking over the screening program for school children. He agreed, and soon found himself working alongside Kay Winn, the district's nursing supervisor.

"She was an Army nurse ...

she did an excellent job" as supervisor, Quimby added. Tragedy struck the family in 2015, when Carl and Evelyn Quimby's daughter, Sherri Ann Quimby-Cronin, suffered life-altering injuries when the car she was driving was struck head-on by a truck operated by a drunk driver. Two of her three children -- a boy and a girl who are twins -- were also seriously injured in the crash.

Sherri had bought her father's practice from him just a few years earlier. Just months later, Evelyn Quimby, Carl's wife of 62 years, passed, and four years later, their son, Barry, died at age 52. Still, Carl Quimby marches forward, finding fulfillment in treating his occasional patient but most importantly -- conversing with them on any topic they'd like to explore.

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