After studying several years at the Terre Haute State Normal George W. Buckner felt assured that he was reasonably prepared to teach the negro youths and accepted the professorship of schools at Vincennes, Washington and other Indiana Villages.  “I was interested in the young people and anxious for their advancement but the suffering endured by my invalid mother, who had passed into the great beyond, and the memory of little Master Dickie’s lingering illness and untimely death would not desert my consciousness.  I determined to take up the study of medical practice and surgery which I did.”

Dr. Buckner graduated from the Indiana Electic Medical College in 1890.  His services were needed at Indianapolis so he practiced medicine in that city for a year, then located at Evansville where he has enjoyed an ever increasing popularity on account of his sympathetic attitude among his people.

“When I came to Evansville,” says Dr. Buckner, “there were seventy white physicians practicing in the area, they are now among the departed.  Their task was streneous, roads were almost impossible to travel and those brave men soon sacrificed their lives for the good of suffering humanity.”  Dr. Buckner described several of the old doctors as “Striding [TR:  illegible handwritten word above ‘striding’] a horse and setting out through all kinds of weather.”

Dr. Buckner is a veritable encyclopedia of negro lore.  He stops at many points during an interview to relate stories he has gleaned here and there.  He has forgotten where he first heard this one or that one but it helps to illustrate a point.  One he heard near the end of the war follows, and although it has recently been retold it holds the interest of the listener.  “Andrew Jackson owned an old negro slave, who stayed on at the old home when his beloved master went into politics, became an American soldier and statesman and finally the 7th president of the United States.  The good slave still remained through the several years of the quiet uneventful last years of his master and witnessed his death, which occurred at his home near Nashville, Tennessee.  After the master had been placed under the sod, Uncle Sammy was seen each day visiting Jackson’s grave.

“Do you think President Jackson is in heaven?” an acquaintance asked Uncle Sammy.

“If-n he wanted to go dar, he dar now,” said the old man.  “If-n Mars Andy wanted to do any thing all Hell couldn’t keep him from doin’ it.”

Dr. Buckner believes each Negro is confident that he will take himself with all his peculiarities to the land of promise.  Each physical feature and habitual idiosyncrasy will abide in his redeemed personality.  Old Joe will be there in person with the wrinkle crossing the bridge of his nose and little stephen will wear his wool pulled back from his eyes and each will recognize his fellow man.  “What fools we all are,” declared Dr. Buckner.

Asked his views concerning the different books embraced in the Holy Bible, Dr. Buckner, who is a student of the Bible said, “I believe almost every story in the Bible is an allegory, composed to illustrate some fundemental truth that could otherwise never have been clearly presented only through the medium of an allegory.”