CLARKSVILLE, TN (CLARKSVILLE NOW) – Some people can’t wait to retire, others are a bit hesitant, and then there a few like Ruben Tramill, still going at age 90, who don’t seem to like the idea at all.
Tramill is a full-time employee, helping out with veterinary and other services at Animal House Veterinary Clinic on Dover Road. This year, he will have spent 26 years at Animal House. “I want to go on just as long as I can,” he said.
‘If you want to eat, you’ve got to work’
Originally from Kentucky, Tramill said his father was a sharecropper, and he worked on the farm. In 1953, he came to Clarksville as a teenager to live with his grandparents. He got a job with a veterinarian and hasn’t stopped since.
“I started regular in 1957, going out on animal calls, helping deliver some calves and other stuff. I helped deliver calves and do C-sections, just about everything. I guess I was called a veterinary assistant back then,” Tramill said.
Everyone who knows and works with Tramill has nothing but praise for his work ethic. Tramill says it came from being born and raised on a farm. “I just believe in working, and my family did too. My mother, daddy and my grandfather believed in working. If you want to eat, you’ve got to work,” he said.
Rescuing vet from rampaging bull
Susie Parker retired as the inventory manager at Animal House and said she has known Tramill since she was about 5 years old. She has worked with him at both the New Providence Animal Clinic and Eastview Veterinary Clinic.
Her father was Dr. James Young, a veterinarian who ran the former New Providence Animal Clinic. Parker said her parents were always so busy, and Tramill practically raised her. “He took me to the places I needed to go and taught me the things I needed to know, like how to drive.”
She shared the story of how a bull once broke through a fence. One of the boards hit her father and knocked him out, and the bull then tried to stomp on him. Parker said Tramill wrestled the bull off her dad.
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In his younger years, Tramill was a huge, strong man, Parker said. The family had a small pony, and other kids would come around they say, “Ruben, pick up the pony.” And to the kids’ delight, Tramill would pick up the pony, which Parker said probably weighed 250 pounds.
‘I couldn’t ask for a better mentor’
Parker said Tramill’s birthday is on Christmas Day, and he usually takes some time to go home and see his family. “While Ruben is gone it usually takes two of us to do Ruben’s job, and it’s a disaster when he is gone,” Parker said.
His co-workers described Tramill as a wonderful man to work with. “Occasionally, over time I have seen people not treat Ruben well, and he has never, ever lost his temper.” Parker said.
Brandon Butts is assistant manager with Animal House and said he met Tramill when he started working there almost 20 years ago. “He was always polite to me and showed me tools and things that I would ask him about, he was always good to me, I couldn’t ask for a better mentor,” Butts said.
When asked about still working and helping people for so many years, Tramill said, “That’s just me as I am. I just love everybody. I just came a long way and without God on my side, I don’t know where I would be.”
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