Dr. George David Maxwell

1937 - 2017

Dr. George David Maxwell, 79, of Athens, peacefully passed away on Thursday, January 5, 2017 at home after a period of declining health over the last several months.

He was born August 4, 1937 in Athens, a son of the late Edgar James Maxwell and Winifred Smith Maxwell. Dr. Maxwell attended Oglethorpe High School, and then at 16, entered the University of Georgia, where he graduated in 1958. The summer before medical school he worked at the UGA Marine Research Lab on Sapelo Island, Georgia. His medical training was at the Medical College of Georgia in Augusta, where he graduated in 1962. Dr. Maxwell was a member of the Senior Medical Program of the U.S. Navy and was in the Navy Reserve in medical school. Every summer he would be on active duty at various places including a submarine deployment, one summer on the aircraft carrier, USS Randolf, when they picked up astronaut Gus Grissom after his space flight and the Naval Air Station in Pensacola, Florida.

After graduating medical school, he did a rotating internship at St. Albans Naval Hospital in Queens, New York. Next came a year of sea duty on the Military Sea Transport service ship, USNS Geiger, which took military dependents to be stationed in Europe. There is where he met the love of his life, Diana Jordan. She and her family were on their way to Frankfurt, Germany. After a brief courtship of only 71 hours face to face, they married four months later. After being married at Christmas in Frankfurt, they headed back to St. Albans for Dr. Maxwell to start his surgical residency. Following his residency, he was stationed with the Marines in Quang Tri, Vietnam in 1969. He was there on the aircraft carrier Kitty Hawk for several weeks visiting a nephew stationed there. Upon completion of his Vietnam tour, he was stationed at the Naval Hospital in Beaufort, South Carolina from 1970 to 1971. His next move was out of the Navy and into private surgical practice in Athens in 1971 until his retirement in 1999. During that time, he was in the Army Reserve and was called back into active service for 10 months in 1990 for Operation Desert Storm.

Dr. Maxwell had a variety of interests. A veracious reader of non-fiction with special interest in the Civil War, history, archeology, hunting and fishing, travel, military history and animals, thus making, him according to his children and grandchildren, "the smartest man alive." They loved trying to think of questions that would stump him like, "Is a platypus a mammal?" He loved to spend hours in the woods hunting both locally and in Wyoming, Colorado and Montana. Running a close second was fishing. He loved trout fishing in the North Georgia streams as well as deep sea fishing. On his 40th birthday after a three-hour flight he landed a striped marlin off Cape Hatteras, North Carolina. He was happiest when he was outdoors.

Dr. Maxwell and his wife loved to travel. They traveled numerous times to Europe, Alaska, Japan, the Caribbean, and in later years, became avid cruisers. But the highlight of his travels was being asked to be the ship's doctor for six weeks on a ship that went to the Falkland Islands, South Island and the Antarctic. Nothing would ever top that.

In medical school he was selected to be a member of AOA, an honorary medical fraternity and Phi Rho social fraternity. He belonged to the Crawford Long Medical Society and was a Fellow in the American College of Surgeons and the Georgia Surgical Society. Dr. Maxwell served as President and Chief of Medical Staff at St. Mary's Hospital in 1975 and at Athens Regional Medical Center in 1980. In 1981 he was selected by the Athens Regional Medical Center Auxiliary as a Doctor of the Year. He also belonged to numerous hunting and fishing organizations.

Dr. Maxwell was preceded in death by siblings, Dr. Edgar James Maxwell Jr., Robert Cauldwell Maxwell, Winifred Maxwell Martin, Margaret Ann Maxwell Polk, Carolyn Maxwell Bryant and Betty Maxwell Awtry.

Survivors include his wife of 52 years, Diana Jordan Maxwell; children, David William Maxwell (Melissa) of Concord, North Carolina, Kelly Maxwell Miller (John) of Watkinsville, Jennifer Maxwell Smith (Kyle) of Concord, North Carolina; grandchildren, Michael David Miller, Reid William Maxwell, Noah Maxwell Smith, Kaylie Jordan Maxwell, Brian Douglas Smith, Samantha Hueso, John Welby Miller Jr.; several great-grandchildren.

The family will receive friends Tuesday, January 10 from 6-8 p.m. at Bernstein Funeral Home.

Funeral services will be held Wednesday, January 11 at 1 p.m. at Lexington Baptist Church. Interment will follow at Clark Cemetery in Lexington.

Flowers are optional. Memorials may be made to the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation, P.O. Box 8249, Missoula, MT 59807; the Wounded Warrior Project, P.O. Box 758516, Topeka, KS 66675; or Wreaths Across America, PO Box 249, Columbia Falls, ME 04623.

Online condolences may be offered at www.bernsteinfuneralhome.com.

Bernstein Funeral Home and Cremation Service is in charge of arrangements.