Dr. I. Robert Wood

CLIFTON SPRINGS- Dr. I Robert Wood, a beloved pediatrician who led a long, rich and fulfilling life marked by service to children, his community, his country and good sportsmanship, died Friday (April 1, 2011), at the age of 92.
Known as Doc Wood, or simply Bob, to the hundreds of friends, patients, health care workers and fellow athletes whose lives he touched in western New York, Dr. Wood passed away at the House of John. That two-patient home for the dying in Clifton Springs was in recent years almost a second home for Dr. Wood and his wife Carol, who spent countless hours as volunteers and members of its board of directors.
In presenting Dr. Wood the Rochester Business Journal Healthcare Volunteer award shortly before his death, the last of many tributes to Dr. Wood's service to others, Clifton Springs Hospital president and CEO John Galati said of him: "At the age of almost 93, his spirit and desire to help others are limited only by his physical ability to do so."
Over the course of a life that began in Canandaigua in 1918, Dr. Wood earned many titles. Doctor, of course, including 20 years as a pediatrician at the Clifton Springs Hospital and Clinic. But also Captain during his service as a U.S. Army paratrooper in World War II; Colonel, with the U.S. Army Reserves; Assistant Professor, at the University of Rochester Medical Center; and lead pediatrician at the Monroe County Health Department.
For all of those achievements, it was the less formal titles that truly illuminated the trajectory of his life: husband (of 63 years), father (to eight accomplished children), grandfather (of 16), runner (in hundreds of road and track races from short to epic), and most of all volunteer – a role he played with unflagging relish for more than six decades.
A graduate of Cornell University and Cornell University Medical School, Dr. Wood enlisted in the Army during World War II and served as a medical officer with the 11th Airborne in the Philippines and in Japan during the post-war occupation. Returning to the U.S. he began his medical practice in Plattsburgh, before coming to Clifton Springs in 1954. In 1975, he joined the Monroe County Health Department, serving as lead pediatrician for 13 years until his retirement.
During his working life, Dr. Wood had always been an active volunteer, as a member and president of the Clifton Springs Rotary club and co-founder and medical director of a camp for handicapped children. In retirement his community service accelerated. In addition to his volunteer work at the House of John, Dr. Wood started the Greeter program at the Clifton Springs Hospital, sponsored Kids in Crisis, coached the DeSales High School track and cross country teams in Geneva, and founded the Midlakes High School Athletics Hall of Fame.
A lifelong athlete who – having never before played soccer – became a second team All American at Cornell after the football coaches dismissed him as too small for their sport, Dr. Wood was a familiar figure at road races throughout western New York. He didn't just run 5k's and 10k's and marathons, however. He also helped lead long relay runs to bring attention to MIA-POW's, runs that started in Rochester and ended everywhere from Boston to Washington, D.C., and participated in two torch relays for the Empire State Games that covered more than 1,000 miles.
Always a fierce competitor, Dr. Wood won the national championship in the indoor 3000 meter race in his 85-89 age bracket, drubbing the then record holder. And in characteristic fashion, he marked his 80th birthday by doing a tandem parachute jump, his first since Airborne jump school at Fort Benning in the 1940's.
At home, Dr. Wood was the patriarch of a large, rambunctious and ever expanding extended family that occupied an old Victorian house on East Main Street in Clifton Springs. It was a home filled with laughter, friendly competitions, friends, Dr. Wood's corny jokes, neighborhood children and foreign exchange students. The walls, and even the barn doors, were covered in Dr. Wood's eclectic art projects. To gird himself for the maelstrom of the ground floor, Dr. Wood painted a one-word reminder to himself above the door frame at the bottom of the back stairs: "Equanimity."
With the children gone and dispersed across the country, Bob and Carol Wood moved to a small home set on a pond in Oaks Corners. It was a place of simple serenity, except for the annual Wood family reunion each summer, a week-long explosion of grandchildren camping on the lawn and creating mayhem everywhere else. It may have been Dr. Wood's favorite week of the year, but he was always eager to get back to his volunteer activities.
In addition to his wife, Dr. Wood is survived by his children, Nancy Kenworthy of Golden, Colo., Dru Wood-Beckwith of Reading, Mass., Carol Ann Wood of Amherst, Mass., Robert Wood of Baltimore, Md., Mary Wood-Maloney of Richmond, Va., Katie Wood Hedberg of Plymouth, N.H. and Mark Wood of Kentfield, Calif. A third son, David, died in 2006.
At his request, Dr. Wood will be remembered at a celebration of his life this coming July in Clifton Springs.
In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to the House of John.
Arrangements have been entrusted to the Cheney Funeral Home, Phelps.