Robert Smith Obituary

Robert Smith was born to Dr. Harry M. Smith and Jessie Ilfeld Smith on June 28, 1912 in Las Vegas, New Mexico, while New Mexico was still a territory. Harry Smith was then director of the New Mexico State Insane Asylum, and it always amused Bob to note that he was born in an asylum. Harry, son of the Superintendent of Leavenworth Penitentiary, received his medical degree from what became Northwestern Medical School and moved to Las Vegas, New Mexico as a temporary doctor for the Santa Fe Railway. When the job became permanent he settled in Las Vegas. In 1906, at age 45, he married Jessie Ilfeld, the daughter of two prominent families of pioneering Jewish merchants. Harry and Jessie eloped to evade retaliation by bachelor friends who had previously been the targets of Harry's practical jokes. An outstanding student, Bob was selected as a high school senior by the governor as the Edison Scholar from New Mexico. He traveled to New Jersey to compete in the national Edison scholarship contest, which evaluated promising young men for intelligence and character in hopes of finding the next Thomas Edison. While there he met Thomas Edison and Henry Ford. Bob attended Stanford for two years, and then transferred to Northwestern University in Chicago to complete his B.S. and concurrently to begin his medical training. He received his M.D. around 1936, and interned at Evanston Hospital in Illinois. Following his internship, Bob, who graduated first in his medical school class, married his high school sweetheart Helen Hunker, who had graduated first in her law school class at the University of Missouri. The couple moved to Boston (arriving during the Great Hurricane of 1938) for Bob to start a research fellowship at Harvard Medical School. Finding he preferred clinical medicine to research, Bob returned after two years to the Chicago area to enter private practice in Evanston. Drafted into the Army medical corps, Bob served during World War II at Fort Sheridan in Highwood, Illinois, treating stateside American troops and German prisoners of war while moonlighting as a private practitioner in Evanston. Subsequently he was assigned to a military hospital in Galesburg, Illinois. Bob and Helen's daughters Sherril and Holly were born during Bob's posting at Fort Sheridan. After the war, Bob and five physician friends decided to form a group medical practice. They selected Colorado Springs as their location, moving here in 1946, when the town had a population of 46,000. The physicians founded the Colorado Springs Medical Center, the first group practice in Colorado. They encountered stiff resistance from local physicians who feared that group practice might be a new form of communism. The Medical Center nonetheless thrived, and merged with several other practices in 1995 to become Colorado Springs Health Partners, which now employs more than 100 physicians. Originally board certified in internal medicine, Bob became interested in the new field of gastroenterology. He trained at centers where gastroenterology was being developed in Vienna (1954) and Japan (1960's and 1970's). On a family trip to Europe in 1954, Bob bought an early gastroscope during his Vienna training; the device attracted much attention from suspicious customs officials as the family drove across borders. Bob was the first gastroenterologist in Colorado Springs, introducing the practice in 1954. He founded the G.I. Laboratory at Penrose Hospital; the Digestive Disease Center was subsequently named in his honor. In 1991, when he retired from the Medical Center (now Health Partners), he was the oldest practicing physician in Colorado Springs. He continued on a part-time basis to care for patients in Hospice and in the County Jail for a number of years. Both Bob and Helen loved travel, and took many extensive trips, including to Mexico, Europe, around the world in both 1963 and 1980, Spain and Portugal, the Middle and Far East, Costa Rica, and Bhutan. Later he traveled with his children to Turkey, Morocco, and the inside passage to Alaska, and accompanied them on a raft trip through the Utah canyonlands and a windjammer cruise off the coast of Maine. Bob and Helen were serious amateur mycologists, finding and studying mushrooms with microscopes on numerous camping and fishing trips in the Colorado Rockies. They were both avid gardeners, as well. After Bob's retirement he trained to be a Master Gardener with the Colorado School of Agriculture. He also enjoyed skiing, taking his grandchildren on memorable ski trips well into his 80s. A talented carpenter and handyman, he loved learning new things and teaching them to his children and grandchildren. Bob was also active in the community. Beyond his contributions to medical associations, he served as one of the founding members of the Board of Directors of Pikes Peak Community College, and for many years on the Board of Directors of the Colorado Springs Art Center, which honored him as a "Living Treasure." He donated a number of important family documents and artifacts to the Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center and the New Mexico History Museum. Bob's true love was medical practice. For him, gastroenterology provided a daily new adventure. Beyond his skills as a fine physician, he had an extraordinary gift of care and concern for his patients, who loved him in return. After Helen H. Smith died in 1989, Bob married Persis Brown in 1990. Persis is the daughter of Alfred L. Brown and Lucy Brown; Alfred Brown was the Superintendent of the State School for the Deaf and Blind in Colorado Springs. Bob loved Persis as a wonderful companion and wife who remade his entire life, and he in turn was the love of her life. They were happily married for twenty-two years, together enjoying university music classes, art shows, lectures and performances in town, and Rockies spring training sessions in Tucson. Bob became a grandfather for two new families, those of Persis's Colorado-based daughters Persis and Lucy. His life was greatly enriched, as were theirs, by his becoming a member of these extended families. Having inherited his father's sense of humor, Bob was still cracking original jokes in his last weeks. Robert Smith is survived by his wife Persis Smith, daughters Sherri Smith (Catherine B. Heller Collegiate Professor of Art, University of Michigan) and Holly Smith (Professor II of Philosophy, Rutgers University), son-in-law Alvin Goldman, grandchildren Raphael Goldman and Sidra Goldman-Mellor and their spouses Sarah Crow and Alex Mellor, great-grandchildren Fiona and Jacob Goldman; sister-in-law Margaret Hunker and many nieces and nephews; step-daughters Persis Schlosser (Denver) and Lucy Lewis (Colorado Springs) and their spouses Charles Schlosser and William Lewis, step-grandchildren Otto and Lily Schlosser, and Hunter, Tyler, and Wylie Lewis. Bob was preceded in death by his parents and his younger brother Jacques Smith, a respected cardiologist in Chicago. He will be greatly missed by members of his family as well as many friends, colleagues and former patients. The family greatly appreciates the expressions of condolence they have received. Memorial gifts may be sent to Penrose-St. Francis Health Foundation, the Colorado Nature Conservancy, or the Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center. No public service is planned.