Local Physician Connects Past to Present

When the tapestry of Marshall’s history was stitched together, many of its early threads were contributed by the families who still live in the town.

Dr. Ren Royston of Countryside Family Practice on Main Street, for instance, lives in the home his father grew up in, next to the funeral home that was founded in 1898 by his great grandfather, Z.V. Royston, Sr.

In addition to being a soldier at Pickett’s Charge in Gettysburg, his great grandfather was a furniture maker, said Royston. “In those days, the craftsmen were sometimes the funeral directors too, because they were the ones who made the handmade caskets.”

Although Royston followed a different path and became Marshall’s first modern physician, he remembers his father showing him how to upholster the inside of caskets, just as his grandfather, Lewis H. Royston, had taught his father.

Royston’s life has been peppered with people whose pasts reach into the present. When he first returned to Marshall after becoming a physician, Royston said he found he had 200 cousins; some of them still lived in and around Marshall. opened a physician’s practice on Renald’s Drive. “The town bought the building hoping to attract a doctor to town,” said Diane Royston, the doctor’s wife. Royston still uses the office for patient education classes.

When he was a child, he spent much of his time with his beloved grandmother, Mamie. During a recent holiday house tour featuring the Royston’s home, a parade of people who used to care for his grandmother came to see the house they remembered so well.

Royston has endless stories about Marshall in the 20th century.

• Alexander Fleming, the inventor of penicillin, stayed in Marshall the night before he testified in front of Congress to get approval for the life-saving drug.

• Royston’s first cousin, Ron Payne, whose mother lived in Marshall, served six presidents as florist in the White House. (He liked Barbara Bush the best.)

There was one family with 14 children, he remembered. Most of them were responsible at one time or another for helping his grandmother after she fell and broke both hips. The father of Amanda Luhowiak, the owner of The Whole Ox on Main Street, was one of those children.

Other neighbors, like Paul and Joan Fries, also have a long history in Marshall. “She owned a flower shop on Main Street; he was the funeral director for 41 years. Retired now, Paul helped build the very first crash truck for the Marshall Volunteer Fire and Rescue Department and was very involved with the department.”

On a drive through town to identify points of interest, Royston pointed out a furniture repair and antique restoration shop currently owned by Lawrence Andes and his son Craig. “That used to be the grocery story,” said Royston.

The Whole Ox was once the Marshall National Bank. Founded in 1905, it was the only local bank that remained solvent during the Great Depression.

Royston talked about the largest still in the Free State where you could buy moonshine, and the little filling station (now the Truist Bank) where he could buy a Coke for a nickel. “It was the closest thing we had to air conditioning,” he joked.

Royston also showed off where he first

• Aaron Royston, one of Royston’s many cousins, served in WWII and was a founding member of the MVFD, in 1946.

• Elwood Glascock was a medic during WWII and was at Germany’s Eagle’s Nest, used by Adolph Hitler. Glascock was one of the soldiers who freed the prisoners at Auschwitz. “After WWII, he stayed near Marshall, except when he would go to get ice cream in Warrenton or run the projector for a movie in Washington, Virginia,” Royston said. (Diane Royston added, “He was the one who would sound the fire alarm at noon every day, when my baby was sleeping!”)

• Royston’s Great Uncle Zach was a master carpenter who played a pivotal role in the restoration of Mount Vernon, George Washington’s home. His house burned down one year on prom night at Marshall High School, which is now the Marshall Community Center. “The children had to be farmed out to other families for 18 months while the house was rebuilt,” remembered Royston.

• Royston recently was gifted the program from his father’s graduation from Marshall High School. Only three people graduated from the school that year, according to the document, which was found in the home of the man – James Brady -- who built the house Royston lives in today.