March 2022- Dr. H's 62nd Anniversary

March is always a very exciting month in our office, as March 4th of every year is Dr. Hubbel’s Chiropractic Anniversary! It is somewhat hard to believe that his first practice opened on March 4th, 1960, making this year his 62nd anniversary!

Dr. Hubbel was born in Hastings, and was raised in Mount Forest, Ontario. He graduated from Mount Forest High school in 1955, and went on to attend the Canadian Memorial Chiropractic College (the college was then only 11 years old!) on Bloor Street West in Toronto. He studied there for 4 years, while working in the Grocery department in Eaton’s store in downtown Toronto to help pay tuition etc. 

From there, Dr. Hubbel and his wife, Joan moved to Cobourg, as there was only one other chiropractor at the time in our town, Dr. Bob Bradford. Dr. Hubbel’s first office was at 150 King Street West (across from the old West High School). He practised there for three years, until he and Joan purchased the house on the corner of Third and Albert Streets, across from the old jail, and this became home and office and they refurbished this old neglected house which was about 100 years old at that time.  This became a modern spacious office with an addition in 1982, which was often noted for its beautiful gardens, and where he stayed until 2010, when he joined Dr Ito’s practice for five years.                        

The highlight of that era was an increase in office visit fee to $4.00 up from the $3 when they started.  Then in 1981 Patricia, our first staff assistant was hired, followed by several other helpful ladies over the next few years, including Karen in 1992 which means she celebrates 30 years with the practice this year. 

The next highlight was opening the new office in 2015 and welcoming Dr Stephanie Johnston to the practice. Then an even bigger thrill was welcoming his granddaughter, Dr Sydney Hubbel Leguard into the practice in June of 2021. She had been planning on this since a very early age!

Dr. Hubbel started off by using “manual” chiropractic techniques, but was an early adopter of Activator Methods Chiropractic, the technique we use in our office most today. Dr. Hubbel is a good friend and colleague to Dr. Fuhr, who was the founder of the Activator Technique in 1976.  Throughout the years, Dr. Hubbel has been an important advocate and teacher of Activator technique in Ontario, and is widely known as one of the most experienced Activator doctors in the country (you can imagine this was a little intimidating for Dr. Leguard as she attended her first Activator seminar while still in chiropractic college; she didn’t realize how big a deal her grandpa is!). With Dr. Hubbel’s expertise and mentorship, both Doctors Johnston and Leguard have become very proficient in Activator technique. 

In the past few years, he has started to slow down,(not really slowing down, just not showing up so often) only seeing patients 2 or 3 mornings per week. Dr. Hubbel does not plan on fully retiring anytime soon… he is still having too much fun. Calculations indicate that probably 800,000 treatments have been performed over those 62 years… give or take a dozen or so!

A note from Dr. Hubbel Leguard… 

Every year, I am so excited to celebrate my grandpa’s chiropractic anniversary. It is always an important date for our family, and it feels like an extra special day this year as I get to celebrate with him as his colleague. 

Many of our patients have known me for years around the office, and have known that I have had a very singular focus of becoming a chiropractor, like my grandpa, since I was very young. In fact, I don’t remember the moment that I decided that I wanted to be a chiropractor, but I remember sitting on my grandpa’s lap in the old office on Third street “reading” x-rays with him, visiting behind the front desk,  and always knowing that I would one day, be doing the same thing.  It has truly been one of the highlights of my life to get to share a career and passion with my grandpa. Learning from him every day, talking about our business, and helping people together is an experience that most granddaughters will never have the privilege of experiencing. Having a resident expert on call at all times is pretty fantastic as a new doctor, too. 

All of this to say; I feel extremely lucky to be a Hubbel, and to get to carry on my grandpa’s legacy of kind, compassionate, excellent chiropractic care with Dr. Johnston. 

‘Congratulations on 62 years, Dr. Grandpa!’