Journeyman: William Garner Sutherland, The Formative Years (1873-1900)

Englischsprachiger Titel

Volume I of II.

Journeyman: William Garner Sutherland, The Formative Years (1873-1900) chronicles the early life and times of William Garner Sutherland (1873-1954), the osteopathic physician who is acknowledged as the originator and developer of the osteopathic cranial concept. Journeyman tells Dr. Sutherland’s backstory, beginning with his parents’ upbringing on neighbouring farms in Wisconsin and ending when, at age twenty-seven, he accepted a Doctor of Osteopathy diploma from osteopathy’s founder, Andrew Taylor Still. On June 28, 1900, Sutherland graduated from the original osteopathic educational institution - the American School of Osteopathy (ASO) established by Dr. Still in 1892 in Kirksville, Missouri.

Because Journeyman tells Dr. Sutherland’s story prior to his graduation, he is mostly referred to simply as “Will” in this book. Will left no autobiography or diaries and only a few personal notations. Instead he wrote about his work. Therefore, Journeyman has used information about the people, places, and events from Will’s environment to create his biography. Vivid descriptions—including landscapes, a blizzard, and a tornado that Will experienced—together with photographs and maps of places where members of Will’s family lived, worked, studied, or died, position the reader alongside Will and the nineteenth-century characters with whom he interacted. These figures include family members, employers, mentors, and instructors at the ASO.

Will was the second of four children born to Dorinda and Robert Sutherland. The Sutherlands were an ordinary family leading an transient life in Midwestern America during the latter part of the 1800s. Readers will follow the misadventures of Will’s father, who was a dreamer, a seeker, and a well-intentioned and honourable man, despite his poor decisions and bad luck. Robert relocated Dorinda and the children—Stephen James, William Garner, Robert Guy, and Helen Ivy—multiple times throughout Wisconsin, Minnesota, and the Dakota Territory.

It was while living in the newly opened frontier town of Blunt, Dakota, that Will’s nearly destitute parents indentured the boy to George Schlosser, the editor of the town’s newspaper, The Blunt Advocate. Under Schlosser’s supervision, Will joined “the force” of the newspaper as an apprentice. Deprived of his teenage years by having to work and leave his family behind, Will entered a man’s world at the approximate age of twelve and began to realize its opportunities and to master its challenges.

With only a brief interlude, Will worked for several Midwestern newspapers for over a dozen years, holding various production positions, including compositor, printer, foreman, journeyman, and reporter. During that time, he developed a highly refined set of manual skills and the mechanical aptitude, power of concentration, and receptivity that would position him to realize the potential for inherent motion within human skull bones; the connection was revealed by a display in a cabinet at the ASO. That realization formed the basis of his revolutionary osteopathic cranial concept. It is noteworthy that, among the hundreds of people that walked by that display of skull bones at the ASO, only one person was inspired by them—William Garner Sutherland.

Readers’ Reactions

Journeyman is the authorized biography of William Garner Sutherland (Glenn Ickler and Dennis Sutherland; grandnephews of WGS)

“Journeyman is a much-needed study of William Garner Sutherland and Jane Stark is the one to write it. Because of the author’s exhaustive research and objective portrait of Sutherland in his milieu, this book and the coming volumes will become the standard and authoritative account if the life of William Garner Sutherland.” – Carol Trowbridge, author of Andrew Taylor Still 1828–1917

“Accompanied by pictures, charts and maps, Journeyman tells a fascinating story of how William Garner Sutherland developed the initial skills and inspiration for his cranial model. A must-read for anyone practicing cranial osteopathy.” – Marie Colford, DO(QC)

“Jane Stark has done an amazing job of researching and describing a trio of histories : William Garner Sutherland’s genealogy and early years ; the development of osteopathy ; and the progress of the methods of typesetting and printing in the newspaper industry. Her detailed accounts of all three takes this story well beyond the range of a standard biography.” – Glenn Ickler, grandnephew of William Garner Sutherland

“Journeyman is a well-referenced, scholarly book that does an exemplary job of exploring the formative periods of Sutherland’s life, including his work as a newspaper journeyman and his years studying osteopathic medicine at the first school of osteopathy. It provides a valuable backstory to Sutherland’s life and career. I am looking forward to the companion book to follow, which will explore Sutherland’s career, thinking, philosophy, and spiritual interests, as well the development and application of his cranial concept.” – David B. Fuller, DO, FAAO, FNAOME, Professor, Department of Osteopathic Manipulative Medicine, Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine, and author of Osteopathy und Swedenborg

“Jane Stark takes us with her on the adventure journey of the Sutherland family. What influenced W.G. Sutherland, his path into Osteopathy. In addition, she gives an extraordinary view on the history of osteopathy and even America ! The book is strongly recommended for all who are interested in knowing this history.” – Frank Mueller, MD, DO-DAAO, DOM-EROP Orthopedic Surgeon & Osteopathic Physician, President of the European Register of Osteopathic Physicians (EROP), member of the Board of Directors of the Osteopathic International Alliance (OIA), Vice-President of the German-American-Academy of Osteopathy (DAAO)

“An ordinary tale revealed in an extraordinary manner enables the reader to experience the hardships endured in early life, whilst gaining insights on how William Garner Sutherland’s future concepts were shaped.” – Tajinder K Deoora, DO(Hons) Dip Phyt MSc FSCCO, Director Deoora Clinic, Faculty & Fellow of Sutherland Cranial College of Osteopathy (UK), International Lecturer, author of Healing Through Cranial Osteopathy

“Dr. A.T. Still wrote, ’A history of any person, place, thing, government or discovery, to be intelligently presented, must start at the point of time when this person or their discovery did not exist.’ (A.T. Still Papers 2009.10.605) Jane Stark has taken Still’s advice to heart in her well-written biography about Dr. William G. Sutherland—“Will.” To understand the Father of Cranial Manipulation, Jane provides a deeply detailed and well-researched documentation of Will’s place in time, surroundings, family, work experiences and mentors, written to explain the person. Be prepared to increase your knowledge in the frontier period, why the typesetter experience was key to Will’s perspective and who were his life mentors that taught him to expand osteopathy into unchartered areas. This is not a mere biography of Sutherland ; it is an osteopathic experience and awakening. I am confident that you will understand Will and his development of cranial manipulation with greater appreciation when you finish reading Jane’s enjoyable book." – Jason Haxton, Director, Mit freundlicher Genehmigung des Museum of Osteopathic Medicine

More infos: https://williamgarnersutherland.com/