Recovery from war injuries led to career as chiropractor

Dr. Thomas Blair McLaughlin was classified as 100 percent disabled when he returned from the Korean War.

With shrapnel scattered throughout his body, leaving him with little feeling on his right side and the loss of his right eye, doctors thought he might not walk again, let alone live a normal life.

According to family members, there was one medical professional who enabled him to walk: a chiropractor.

The adjustments he made, combined with exercise and therapy, did more than help Dr. McLaughlin physically. They led him to choose chiropractic medicine as a profession, taking him down a career path that would become a family legacy.

Dr. McLaughlin, who died Nov. 12 at age 76, left his native Long Island, N.Y., to attend the Logan College of Chiropractic, in Chesterfield, Mo. It was there that he fell in love with a classmate, Odilia, whom he would marry in 1954 while they still were in school.

After he graduated in 1956, his first job was as an associate to a chiropractor in Elgin. Within two years, Dr. McLaughlin opened his own practice, Palatine Chiropractic.

As an early business leader in downtown Palatine, Dr. McLaughlin was a charter member of the Palatine Rotary Club, which formed in 1964, and he also became an active member of the Palatine American Legion Post 690.

At the same time, he remained involved with his alma mater, serving on its board of trustees for 20 years, as well as president of its alumni association for two terms. His dedication led him to win their Distinguished Service Award in 1983.

Back in Palatine, his practice grew along with the bustling Northwest suburb. His wife helped out with the business end of it, while staying home to raise the couple's three children.

In the end, all three followed the family profession, and became chiropractors themselves. Dr. Michael J. McLaughlin, and his twin sisters, Dr. Christine M. McLaughlin and Dr. Donna M. McLaughlin, all work at Palatine Chiropractic, with, at one time, both parents.

Their father, Dr. Thomas McLaughlin, wound up working full time for 40 years in the practice, before retiring in 1998. His children say his long life astounded military doctors, who had tracked other veterans like him who had sustained that much shrapnel.

"There were something like seven or eight of them that they tracked," says Donna McLaughlin of Rolling Meadows. "He was the only one who lived past 40."

Dr. McLaughlin was preceded in death by his wife, who passed away 11 years ago. Besides his son and daughters, he is survived by six grandchildren and one great-grandchild.

Visitation for Dr. McLaughlin will begin at 1 p.m. Saturday before his 4 p.m. funeral service, all at Ahlgrim Family Funeral Home, 201 N. Northwest Hwy. in Palatine.