For nine years he practiced general medicine at Hobart Mills, California, operating his own fifteen-bed hospital.

In 1931 Dr. Schofield traveled to Vienna, Austria, and to Edinburgh, Scotland, for advanced study in specialized surgery. Returning to California, he specialized in accident cases involving surgery and bone fractures. In 1932 he was appointed chief surgeon and medical director for the Six Companies at Las Vagas, Nevada, the headquarters of the great Hoover Dam project. Sunstroke and heat exhaustion demanded much of Dr. Schofield's time, so he established a desert research laboratory and began experimenting in physiological biochemistry to determine the causes of heatstroke. The wide employment of salt tablets by workers in excessive heat is the direct result.

For the past eighteen years, Dr. Schofield has been a practicing surgeon in Sacramento, California. In 1949 he was awarded membership in the Academia Consentino, being formally decorated with the medal of that order when he addressed the International Industrial Medical Association in Italy. Dr. Schofield is a Fellow of the American College of Surgeons, a past president of the Nevada Medical Association, a past president of the Western Industrial Association and a director of the American Industrial Association.

El Paso has one native son who is a movie actor. Those of you who find the name of Byron Keith (an assumed name) unfamiliar, may remember a good-looking, sharp-witted lad by the name of Clete Schwitters who was born in El Paso to Chris H. and Ada Kamp Schwitters on November 17, 1917. He didn't remain long in El Paso, for his parents moved to Armstrong and Estherville, Iowa, where Clete received most of his education. His intelligence and sense of humor landed him in radio work where he began broadcasting special events and news under the name of Clete Lee. From a station in Des Moines, Iowa, he went to Boise, Idaho, becoming director of special events for station KIDC.

In 1941 he was in Hollywood as a radio actor, but he left this work May 5, 1942 to enlist in the Air Force. The next year he was commissioned a second lieutenant and was assigned to the Public Relations and Intelligence section. There he co-produced and directed the "Eyes of the Air Force" over the Columbia Broadcasting System from New York City. Receiving his honorable discharge in 1944, he returned to Hollywood and radio work. His first moving picture was in 1945 when he got a part in a picture called "The Stranger" which featured Loretta Young, Edward G. Robinson and Orson Wells. Since then he has appeared in fourteen pictures, the latest released being "The Robe" and "Arrowhead". The latter is a high-class western type of picture in which Clete (Byron Keith) played the third male lead and did a fine job.

Cletus L. Schwitters now lives in Van Nuys, California, is married to a member of a radio trio, and they have a son and a daughter. He has

Page 285

Go to previous page

Go to next page

Go to El Paso Story gateway page