Dr. Primm was Randolph County Hospital

Dr. Chester B. Primm, physician at Randolph County Hospital for 38 years, died on Thursday of last week at Traylor Nursing Home in Roanoke. He was 85.

Services for Dr. Primm were Saturday at Roanoke Church of Christ, followed by burial at Randolph Memory Gardens.

He was born Jan. 11, 1920, in Idabel, Okla., the son of James Cevere and Lou Ethel McPherson Primm. Dr. Primm grew up in Jasper, Ala., and served in the U.S. Air Force during World War II.

Dr. Primm was a graduate of Walker College and attended Samford University, earning his bachelor’s degree in 1949. He graduated from Medical College of Alabama in Birmingham. He did his residency at Erlanger Hospital and at Campbell’s Clinic Hospital in Chattanooga.

He met his future wife when she was an x-ray tech at Hillman Hospital (now UAB). During his retirement interview with the Leader, he joked, “That’s where I got in trouble in the dark room.”

Dr. Primm began his medical practice May 1, 1955, at the old Knight Sanatorium on Maple Drive in Roanoke and joined the medical staff at Randolph County Hospital in 1957.

In a 1988 article for the Leader, Dr. Primm’s assistant, Bill Caypless said, “I’ve never met anybody like him. A lot of doctors are dedicated, but you’ll never find another Dr. Primm anywhere. The days of people like Dr. Primm are gone … This is not a job to him. This is him. Dr. Primm is Randolph County Hospital.”

Dr. Primm is survived by one daughter, Susan Farris of Nashville, Tenn.; one son, Tommy Primm of Brentwood, Tenn.; and five grandchildren.

During his children’s years in school, Dr. and Mrs. Primm were avid Band Boosters for Handley High School Band. They were also faithful members of Roanoke Church of Christ, where Dr. Primm served as an elder for many years. His wife, Mary Faye Nelson Primm, died in 1996.

“It’s something you feel like you’re doing a good thing with. There’s a lot of sadness and a lot of happy things. You see babies born, and you see the people rejoicing over that. You see people sick and overcome with their sickness. Sadness comes when you lose one,” said Dr. Primm.

Dr. Primm left the hospital on Nov. 1, 1993, but continued to make house calls, see patients in a small office off his carport and check on residents at Roanoke Health Care Center until Jan. 1, 1998.

He continued to deliver babies long after many other general practitioners had stopped. It is estimated he delivered more than 5,000 babies in his career. To put that in perspective, the population of Roanoke is not quite 7,000.

Upon his retirement from the hospital, Dr. Primm shared this philosophy, “I don’t really think miracles happen like they did in Biblical days. There has to be the Old Master helping out. He’s behind us all the time anyway. If it weren’t for the religious side of it, it’d be a hard thing to keep going sometimes.”