Wood was an old-time country doctor who started his practice in 1901, visiting his patients by horse and bug gy. He was also a registered pharmacist and owned Wood's Drug Store, a popular gathering place for locals.
Stories about the man abound.
In the oral history collection 'Hard er Than Hardscrabble,' which re counts what life was like when people lived on the land now occupied by Fort Hood, Robert E. Gault de scribes Dr. Wood this way.
'Dr. D.L. Wood was at Killeen, he delivered several thousand bab ies...He delivered all of us. He come out there on the farm, did a real good job. I think it's 10 dollars he charged for a maternity case in those days.
'My sister had typhoid fever once, and he come out there and took care of her. He gave me five typhoid shots during that time, and boy, those things hurt in those days - those old unrefined shots. I run and hid under the bed one time, and they drug me out by the feet.
'Dad would always take me into (Dr. Wood's drugstore) to have a checkup in the spring of the year, and old Dr. Wood would examine me, and if I needed anything he'd fix me up a tonic. It's 25 cents, then he'd go in and buy me an ice cream cone. Big old gruff guy, you know.'
Wood was born in Mississippi in 1872, moved to Belton when he was nine and eventually settled near old Fort Gates. He studied medicine at Tulane University and Vanderbilt and also with the Mayo Brothers.
Aside from serving as mayor, Dr. Wood served on the school board for 21 years and was the local physician for the Santa Fe Railroad. He also served as president of the state medical society.
In 'Harder than Hardscrabble,' Kyle Hilliard recalled the time he had pneumonia and Dr. Woods came to see him.
'We had an ace in the hole, our family doctor, D.L. Wood of Killeen, who was an absolutely superb doctor for those days. They got Dr. Wood, I can remember him coming out to our house when I had pneumonia. He didn't lose a pneumonia patient unless he got to them way too late in the week they had it. He said, 'I want him to drink a about a gallon of water every hour.' He didn't mean that literally, but he meant for me to drink lots of liquid, lots of water. A simple thing, but it's very, very important.
'He looked around this old house we lived in. It wasn't as bad as the one down in the pasture for day labor, but the wallpaper was not stuck to the walls like it was supposed to be, and that high winter north wind would blow, and it would billow out and then come back and cling to the wall.
'Dr. Wood looked around and saw how the house wasn't very tight. The wind was coming everywhere and the windows and fireplace, too, and he said, 'I see he'll get plenty of fresh air in this house!''
And so it was with Dr. Wood. He was consistent. He rarely lost his composure, even when treating - or being unable to treat - a member of his own family.
In the book 'Killeen: Tale of Two Cities,' author Gra'delle Duncan writes of the time when Dr. Wood's son, Gordon Wood, was returning from a hunting trip and his gun accidentally discharged and mortally wounded him.
Dr. Wood arrived at the scene, where his son said, 'Papa, I believe I am killed.'
'Son, I believe you have it right. How is it with you?' the doctor and father replied.
The boy answered, 'If it is my time, I stand ready to go.'
Duncan wrote: 'The doctor, who had been able to help so many others to live, was unable to save his son and the poignancy of the event inscribed it permanently into the town's lore.'
As is Dr. Wood's legacy of healing and compassion in a decidedly harder but somehow simpler time.
