Robert Tuttle McSherry

Robert Tuttle McSherry, M.D., 90, died Jan., 10, 2010, at Smith Phayer Hospice House in Landrum, S.C., of heart failure. Born in Watsonville, Calif., the son of Charles E. and Gladys T. McSherry, Dr. McSherry grew up in Watsonville near Monterey, where his life-long love of nature and the outdoors began with many family hiking, camping and fishing trips to the Sierra Nevada Mountains. Dr. McSherry was a graduate of Stanford University and Yale Medical School. A former resident of Stafford, Pa., he had a long career in the Philadelphia area as an anesthesiologist, including an assistant professorship at Jefferson Medical College. He retired in 1984 and moved to Tryon, N.C., five years later with his wife, Susan W. McSherry. She predeceased him in 2007 after 62 years of marriage. Mrs. McSherry was the daughter of Edgar F. and Josephine Woodman of Concord, N.H. Dr. McSherry's interest in medicine began during World War II when he served as a Navy corpsman with the Marines in the South Pacific. He saw action with the Third Marine Division on Guadalcanal and Bougainville and was later commissioned as an ensign in the Navy, being discharged after the war at the rank of lieutenant j.g. Along with medicine, he had an avid interest in bird watching, even travelling as far as Costa Rica to study the migratory patterns of North American birds. His hiking adventures took him to Canada and along most of the Appalachian Trail, and in retirement he loved trekking the mountains and hollows of western North Carolina. He was also an accomplished watercolorist and exhibited his paintings at shows in Saluda, N.C., and at his studio and gallery in Tryon. Dr. McSherry was a founding and life member of the Katahdin Medical and Philosophical Society, a member of the Foothills Equestrian Nature Center in Tryon and a past member of the American Medical Association. He is survived by his daughter, Jessica A. McSherry of Valley Forge, Pa.; his son and daughter-in-law, Robert W. and Carol N. McSherry of Newtown Square, Pa., and his brother, James M. McSherry of Monterey, Calif. Funeral services are private. Burial will be held at Blossom Hill Cemetery in Concord, N.H. In lieu of flowers, memorial donations can be made to the Foothills Equestrian and Nature Center, 3381 Hunting Country Road, Tryon, N.C 28782. An on-line guest register may be signed at www.mcfarlandfuneralchapel.com.