BRUCE BAXTER NEWMAN M.D.

Newman , Bruce Baxter, M.D.
Dr. Bruce Baxter Newman, M.D., died Sunday, March 15th, of complications from a fall. He was a resident of Plymouth Place in La Grange Park, IL. He was born November 27, 1918 in Chicago, IL to Elizabeth and Frank Newman. When he was four, the family moved to Elmhurst into a Sears's kit home bungalow built by his father and grandfather. Dr. Newman graduated from York High School, where he was captain of the football team. A local paper printed that he was the only boy from West Elmhurst to have that honor. When he decided to become a doctor, his high school principal told him that his hands were too big and that he'd never make it in medicine. One of Dr. Newman's favorite high school memories was finding a Studebaker for $9.00 and, then, paying for it over time because he didn't have enough money, and then having to get the car home when it didn't start, and then, spending a lot of time rebuilding the engine. He was very popular as a car owner and drove six or seven people to high school every day. Two of his young summers were spent in upstate Michigan with high school friends, camping out and fishing and hunting for food. Nobody had anything then! They all jointly paid for gas for the Studebaker.
He graduated from the University of Illinois in three years and then from the University of Illinois medical school in Chicago, and went directly into WWII where as a First Lt. in the medical corps he was involved with transporting injured soldiers from North Africa to the safety of the United States.
After a one year internship at Research Hospital of Chicago and six months at Contagious Disease hospital, he took a two year residency at Children's Memorial Hospital. He practiced pediatrics in Amarillo, Texas for one year, in Oak Park for two years, in La Grange for two years, and in Hinsdale for 40 years. In the 1970's he added emergency room practice and ended up in General Medicine. When he was head of pediatrics at the La Grange Hospital in the 60's, he tried to get all the nurses in pediatrics to stop smoking, but found that no one else would back him up at that time. He also was medical director at the Masonic Home in La Grange in the 50's. In later years, Dr. Newman would love it when grown-up patients of his would recognize him and ask him to guess who they were.
Dr. Newman contracted polio in the 50's just before the vaccines came out. In about 1995 he was afflicted with post-polio syndrome which left him with extreme weakness and progressively he got wore and more handicapped as he got older.
One of his greatest loves was his Rock House Farm in Caroll County, which he purchased in the early 60's. He and his children and Boy Scouts planted thousands of white pine seedlings back then and when Dr. Newman was 88 years old, he asked the current owner of Rock House farm, Mike Novak, DDS of Hinsdale, to cut down a mature pine, age the wood and cut boards for Dr. Newman's coffin. Dr. Novak delivered the wood and Tom Leatherwood of Normandy Builder's built the coffin on his own time. Dr. Newman will be buried in his plain pine box in his everyday favorite clothes and covered with an Indian blanket from Portland, Oregon.
Dr. Newman was divorced from his first wife, Jayne, and leaves his beloved wife, Meredith, who he married in 1973. He also leaves three children, Jeffrey (Mary) of Seattle, Thomas (Carma) of Hinsdale, and Lizbeth (Norman) Forrest of Portland, Oregon; and two step-children, Heather (Terrance) Buck of Grass Valley, CA, and Frederick (Maria Luisa) Brooke of Basel, Switzerland; and 10 grandchildren, Cara and Susan Newman, Christopher and Laura Forrest, Alexander, Samantha and Nicholas Buck, and Mark, Henry and Charlie Brooke. He was a member of the Hinsdale Golf Club, loved old cars, particularly Packards, was an active reader of non-fiction, and spent his last years creating beautiful walking sticks in wood and brass. Some of them have been given to friends and family and the rest will ultimately be donated to Wellness House through the Courtyard Shop in Hinsdale where they will be sold.
Services will be held Saturday, March 21st, at 10:30 a.m. in Dole Hall of Plymouth Place, 315 N. LaGrange Road, La Grange Park. Donations can be made to Wellness House, Hinsdale, Robert Crown Center, The Chicago Symphony Orchestra, or Plymouth Place.