Dr. Robert C. McDaniel

Psalm 31:3-5 For you are my rock and my fortress; and for your name's sake you lead me and guide me; you take me out of the net they have hidden for me, for you are my refuge. Into your hand I commit my spirit; you have redeemed me, O LORD, faithful God. Dr. Robert C. McDaniel, beloved husband, father and physician, died Sunday, May 23, 2021 in Longview, Texas. He was 80 years old. One of the great joys in his life was his love of medicine. He was a skilled diagnostician who had no desire to retire. His was a career that spanned 53 years and saw him serve in emergency rooms, laboratories, blood banks, and private practice. In recent years, he referred to himself as a "circuit rider", dividing his time between a number of clinics. He was a voracious reader, a scholar of history and literature, and often remarked that if he hadn't become a doctor he would have enjoyed being an archeologist. He was born March 10, 1941 in Rogers, Texas to Douglas and Mabel McDaniel. His love affair with books began in 1946 with his mother reading Black Beauty aloud to him on the train to Arizona where they were to join his father, who was serving as a sergeant at a POW camp. He never forgot the book or the Arizona sunsets. He was raised in Temple where his father served with the Temple Fire Department and his mother was a homemaker. Growing up, he was especially fond of garter snakes. He enjoyed retelling the story of disrupting a ladies tea his mother was hosting by walking into the living room with several tiny snakes entwined around each hand. The dismay of his mother and her guests was a source of amusement even after six decades. Later in life, this fascination would lead to research on the serum pathology of diamondback water snakes while working as the Director of the Blood Bank and Clinical Pathology at the University of Arkansas Medical Center. His love of medicine may have had its origins when he contracted polio at the age of eight. He was hospitalized at Brackenridge Hospital in Austin where his parents were allowed to see him for one hour a day. While in the hospital, unable to sleep, and in great pain, he asked the nurse for help. She brought him a hot water bottle. He said he never asked for help with the pain again. This same fortitude helped him to return to his daily life. He played baseball from his wheelchair and learned to walk again. He graduated from Temple High School in 1959 and enrolled at Bethany Nazarene College. It was there he met his wife of 57 years, Carolyn, when he asked for a bobby pin to add weight to a paper airplane. They married in 1963. From Bethany he would go on to Mary Hardin Baylor, and eventually Southwestern University, where he graduated in 1964. He graduated from the University of Texas Medical School in Galveston with honors in 1968 and moved to Wichita, Kansas to begin an internship in Emergency Medicine at Wesley Medical Center. In 1970, he was commissioned as a Lt. Commander in the Navy and was sent to Cam Ranh Bay in Vietnam, and was the first naval officer with children stationed in country. In Vietnam, he served as a medical liason with the local community. In that capacity he delivered "dozens of babies." He returned stateside in 1971 and served at Skaggs Island Naval Communications Base in California before beginning a residency in Anatomic and Clinical Pathology at Barnes Jewish Hospital in St. Louis, Missouri. He also taught at Washington University before accepting a position as the Director of Clinical Pathology at City Hospital and Snodgrass Laboratories. In 1977, he accepted a position as the Director of the Blood Bank and Clinical Pathology at the University of Arkansas Medical Center. In 1984, tired of administrative duties taking him away from patient care, he returned to emergency medicine and moved with his family to Longview, Texas. If he loved you, he teased you, and he wanted to feed you. He was well known for his many specialties: Gumbo Ya-ya, all manner of pies, and his famous fudge. Nothing delighted him more than to cook for family and friends. He was an avid collector and restorer of antiques, and maintained an encyclopedic knowledge of pottery and glassware. His was an abiding love for animals and weakness for dogs in particular. His menagerie over the years would include pot-bellied pigs, horses, cattle, and geese. He loved the outdoors, long walkabouts with his dogs, a bargain, and his family. He loved people and feared the Lord. He was a good man. He is preceded in death by his parents and one grandson, Jack Hauenstein. He is survived by his beloved wife, Carolyn, and children: daughter, Melissa McDaniel and husband, James Harkins; son, Robert McDaniel and wife, Miriam Sorto; daughter, Allison McDaniel, and his grandchildren: Cayce Dale McGuire, Baird McDaniel, Jake Harkins, and Carly Harkins, his sisters, Diane McDaniel and Connie Atkins, three great-grandchildren, and his black labrador, Sophie. He will be missed by his many nieces, nephews, cousins, and friends. He disliked funerals and in accordance with his wishes, there will be no services.