Dr. Sien Hwie Lie

Dr. Sien Hwie Lie, age 87, passed away while in hospice care at Baptist-St. Anthony’s Hospital on March 13, 2025, due to complications related to dementia.

Funeral Service will be at 2:00 P.M., Thursday, March 20, 2025, at First Baptist Church. Arrangements are by Boxwell Brothers Funeral Directors, 2800 Paramount Blvd., Amarillo, Texas.

He is survived by his wife of 56 years, Giok Lien, two sons and a daughter-in-law, Ham and Hauw (Yi-An), and a granddaughter, Stella.

Sien Hwie was born on June 17, 1937, in Surabaya, Indonesia. After graduating at the top of his class at St. Louis Catholic High School in Surabaya, he continued his education at the prestigious Airlangga University where he received his medical degree. Following medical school, he began practicing medicine on Madura, a small island off the east coast of Java, and devotedly crossed the strait on a tiny boat to the main island every week to see his future wife during their courtship despite the fact that he could not swim. They would later marry on January 11, 1969, and welcomed their first son a year later. They would then immigrate to the United States in 1972 where he would spend a year at Deaconess Hospital in St. Louis, MO for internship before moving on to a residency in Obstetrics and Gynecology in Kansas City, MO. They welcomed a second son soon afterwards, and he joined an established Ob/Gyn practice in 1976. Hoping to branch off on his own, Sien Hwie moved his family to the Texas Panhandle in 1980 and started a solo practice in Dumas, TX, becoming the only Ob/Gyn in town. He would later move his practice to Amarillo, TX in 1984 where he would remain, providing care to the community until his retirement in 2019. He would also find an immense supportive fellowship as a member of First Baptist Church of Amarillo where he regularly attended with his wife.

His patients knew him as a calm, caring, and meticulous physician. His friends and family knew him as a patient, resilient, and modest man who deeply loved them in his own gentle way. He was a man of few words who strived to show his character through his deeds as a loving father and husband.

He loved to travel when he could get away from his busy medical practice. He especially enjoyed cruises (ironically, still never learning how to swim), and journeyed to multiple places around the world. He enjoyed almost every type of cuisine and could eat spicy peppers like candy. But all of these foods took a backseat to his wife’s home cooking, especially an Indonesian stew called soto ayam. He was a frugal person and was elated when he was old enough to qualify for the senior citizen price for coffee at McDonald’s. He also had a bit of a sweet tooth, and up to the time of his passing, he would still ask for his family to bring home ice cream.

We will greatly miss him.