John Brown III

1945 - 2025

Dr. John Stewart Brown, III passed away on December 23. Let us take a moment to remember this lovely man.

Jackie was born on July 10, 1945 in Sylacauga Alabama, the second child of John S. Brown II and June Evelyn Tribble Brown who had moved there while Jackie's father worked to support the war effort. The family returned to Chicago afterward, where John Sr. worked as a research chemist and June Sr taught school.

Young Jackie and his sister Junie, two little imps each named after a parent, spent their days playing with the spaniel puppies raised by their mother and their fathers' model trains.

In the early 50s, there was a polio epidemic and the family decided to move out of the city and settle in Flossmoor, where they built a very modern and somewhat small Frank Lloyd Wright inspired house on a big plot of land with a small patch of corn, grapes, and berries.

Jackie's sister Joy Louise was born around this time. As one did in a time with more freedom, all three ran around and had fun riding their bikes through the forest trails and country clubs to get to the small downtown. There was piano and base guitar, touch football and a broken nose.

In the summers, Jack would joyfully take the Monon train down to Rensselaer to stay with his Aunt Texie who taught school and Uncle George who owned the local lumber yard. The childless couple would fuss over him, teaching him how to build things and feeding him chicken soup with homemade egg noodles, angel food cake, and lemon meringue pie. Those, along with pecan and pumpkin pies, remained lifelong favorites.

Jack and his sisters were all precocious, skipping grades in school with June going off to college at 16 and Jack at 17. Jack went to University of Illinois, joined a fraternity, partied too much, and failed out. Let's just say that Sigma Tau Gamma sounded like a very good time.

He met his future wife, Karen Louise Tokarse Brown in summer school at Purdue Calumet and they eloped 3 weeks later. That must have been quite a conversation to have with their parents.

At 21 years old, he had his first child, Susie Jayne. The young couple lived in Munster in a cute little apartment next to train tracks where, very early every morning, the train would go by and toot at their baby waving from her crib.

Jack always said that meeting Karen, getting married, and having a baby was the best thing that ever happened to him because it settled him down suddenly he had to juggle working and having a young family with taking classes at Purdue Cal. He worked in a chemistry lab at one of the steel companies and sold office equipment for IBM.

He was the second ever graduate from Purdue Cal though honored as the first at a very nice inaugural ceremony at the Westville campus many decades later. His diploma was in American History, which explains the many family summer trips to remote Southern farm fields where supposedly some battle or other had been fought.

Jack and Karen moved down to Purdue in West Lafayette for their Master degrees, where Jack studied physics and Karen teaching. Jack loved science and tech and the young family spent many an afternoon having a picnic in the park and playing with remote controlled cars and airplanes.

At 25, Jack and Karen graduated and welcomed their second child, John Stewart. Although Jack began doctoral studies in nuclear pharmacy, he was soon accepted to Indiana Unversity medical school which took the family to Indianapolis. At 29, Jack graduated medical school and had his third child, Stephen Charles. Karen joked that every time he graduated he got both a diploma and a baby.

John, as he now began calling himself, loved surgery. However, he also loved his family and knew that he wouldn't have as much time for them if he chose that path and so he became a family physician, doing his residency in Kalamazoo.

Just because he couldn't be a surgeon full time didn't mean he didn't want to do all the amazing medicine possible. He became board certified in emergency medicine, worked for many years in the ERs in Porter and St. Anthony's hospitals, and scrubbed into surgeries with local surgeons as their assistant before going into private practice.

John (now Doc) started clinics before such a thing widely existed. Patients could come to his large offices and get x-rays, lab work, and outpatient surgical procedures. He saw families for their every day healthcare and more. Once, he came in on a weekend and sewed on a finger. He was a doctor that everyone could rely on.

And Doc loved being a country doctor. He enjoyed his patients and often went to lunch with them. He considered them friends.

Doc also loved teaching. He opened books for his patients to read about their illnesses. He trained medical students from IU Northwest and medical assistants from Ivy Tech. He was involved with setting up the Physician Assistant program at Valparaiso University.

In his spare time John was always learning and doing. He built the sturdiest picnic table, sand box, and lighted carpentry shed ever seen. He developed medical software that was used by Johns Hopkins. He was a founder of Pinnacle Hospital.

He got his pilot's license. When he was a teenager his cousin Carolyn's husband Jeff had taken him flying and he caught the bug. He got certified in scuba and went diving all over the US and the Caribbean.

As John's medical practice got established, John and Karen loved to travel and have fun - visiting family and friends, ski trips, scuba diving, deep sea fishing, and trips to Europe. There were plays and concerts and lots of eating out.

When Karen became ill in 2012, John's daughter Susie came to live with them. After Karen passed away, Susie continued to take care of John and became his companion. His life continued to be full of medicine, eating out, and traveling. There were more adventures - a wedding in a castle in Ireland, vineyards in California, ski trips, deep sea fishing, and visits and parties with family.

John was very proud of all his children's accomplishments - his daughter's work in environmental science & finance and his sons' work in information technology.

John had a really, really good life.

In recent years, John became invalided and spent his time between his bed and his wheelchair. He wasn't as sharp as he once was, but still utterly delightful and funny. He was full of life, joyful, and looking forward to a year of holidays, family events, and many, many lunches out.

John is survived by his two sisters, three children, and six grandchildren.

A wake will be held at Burns Funeral Home in Crown point on January 16 from 3 - 7 p.m. A viewing, funeral, and internment will be held at Good Shepard Church in Valparaiso on January 17 at 10 a.m., followed by luncheon at his country club. We hope to see everyone who was a part of Doc's life.