William Beach III

1936 - 2022

BEACH, III, Dr. William R.

Dr. William R. Beach III passed away on October 28, 2022. He was 86 years old and an example of how amazing the love of a great spouse and modern medicine can be. He lived 34 years longer than his father did and only spent five nights in the hospital during his life. He ate luxuriously and loved telling a good story. He was very loved by his family and respected by many. Still mentally and physically strong enough to live at home, he fell on Monday and passed just four days later.

Born in Winston-Salem, North Carolina on February 6, 1936, Bill was the only child of William R. Beach Jr, and Elizabeth Poole Beach. He grew up in Madison, North Carolina and was a paper boy, worked as a soda jerk in the town's only pharmacy, and drove his country doctor father to house calls. He was valedictorian of Madison High School (1952) despite being kicked out of school in his junior year for reading comic books in math class. To win a bet with his dad, Bill graduated from Wake Forest College in three years at the age of 19, having earned Phi Beta Kappa honors and being a member of the Pi Kappa Alpha social fraternity. In 1959, Bill earned his M.D. from the Emory University School of Medicine. After graduation, he went on to train in Pathology at Emory, Bowman Gray School of Medicine in Winston-Salem, North Carolina and St Luke's Hospital (Baylor Medical School) Houston, Texas.

It was in Winston-Salem, where Bill met a young nurse, Barbara Ann Clark, and fell in love over dates at the local coffee shop for tea and pie. They wed in 1961, and were happily married for 59.8 years until Barbara passed away on November 9, 2021. The young couple lived in Houston, where Bill was a pathology resident with the Army in San Antonio and in the U.S. Canal Zone in Panama. After leaving the Army, Bill practiced pathology in Orlando, but spent most of his career at Windy Hill Hospital just north of Atlanta. In the late 1970s, he founded Suburban Pathology Inc. to serve smaller community hospitals. In 2001, Bill retired from medicine after spending several years as Medical Director for the Wellstar Healthcare System. At the age of 61, he completed the Kennesaw State University MBA program just for the fun of it.

Bill and Barbara had three boys. Their first son, William R. Beach IV, known as "Little Bill", sadly contracted spinal meningitis and passed away at 3 years of age. The couple had 2 more boys, Jim and John, who between them have 6 grandchildren that Bill loved.

He was an avid reader as well as being interested in travel, computers, collecting antiques, and spending time boating and skeet shooting at the family's second home in Cashiers, North Carolina. Despite his numerous hobbies, family was his greatest joy. Bill is survived by his two sons; their wives, Megan and Missie; and his grandchildren, Christian, Anna, Hatcher, Brooks, William R. Beach V, and Tatum. Services will be held Saturday, December 10, 2022 at 4 PM at the Cathedral of Saint Philip, 2744 Peachtree Road. In lieu of flowers, donations to the Cathedral Flower Guild would be appreciated.