Obituary: Dr. William R. Kueffner, 96, of Southport

From Shaughnessey Banks Funeral Home

After a long, productive, happy, and near-saintly life, Dr. William R. Kueffner of Southport, Connecticut died peacefully on the morning of February 10, 2017. He was 96 years old. Bill was born on March 14, 1920 in St. Paul, Minnesota where he and his two sisters grew up. Both his father (William) and grandfather (Otto) were attorneys and his mother (Helen) was a talented musician and violinist.

He lived fully in Connecticut for some 65 of his 96 years, but his fondest memories were always of Minnesota, especially the nearly two decades of youthful summers he spent in Marine on St. Croix, where he worked, played, swam, and lived pieces of the life Garrison Keillor often described in Prairie Home Companion. According to Bill, the results of the Minnesota Aptitude Test he took in high school said he should be a doctor or an engineer, and since he didn’t favor figures, he decided to become a doctor. At Creighton High School in St. Paul, Bill was a good student and a strong member of the swim team. He was also a Boy Scout and earned his Eagle Scout pin in 1936.

He went on to Carleton College and the University of Minnesota, where he graduated with a medical degree in 1943. After a short internship and accelerated war-time training, he joined the Army and served as a Battalion Surgeon in the 10th Mountain Division. Although he never trained with the famed ski troops at their Colorado camp, his theory was that the Army believed he would be a good winter soldier because he was a Minnesota boy. He was sent to Italy, replacing a doctor who had been captured by the Germans. According to Bill, the captured doctor had held his map upside down. This cautionary tale was often invoked to scare his sons into reading their maps properly. Bill told of setting up his medic stations away from German targets, “patching up” some soldiers, and sending others to the MASH, as well as enlisting horses to pull his stuck jeep across a stream.

After Italy, Bill had been destined to be part of the invasion on Japan until the surrender following Hiroshima changed those orders. It was while serving in the Army medical corps at Fort Upton on Long Island that he met and married his first wife, Elizabeth Berg of Southport. Their first son, Bruce, was born in October 1945. When Bill returned from Italy, they moved to Brighton in Boston where Bill trained in pediatrics at Boston Children’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School. In June of 1946, the small family moved to a fifth floor walk-up on 75th Street in New York City and Bill studied at Cornell & New York Children’s Hospital.

They later moved to Fairfield, closer to Elizabeth’s parents, where he started his practice in 1949, the same year their second son, John, was born. As a young pediatrician, he volunteered his services as team doctor for the Roger Ludlowe High School football squad. He was amazed how, despite their injuries, the players always wanted to get back on the field. His practice grew and moved from its original 2nd floor location on the corner of Post and Reef Roads to a brick building just east of the Fairfield Public library.

In 1951, Elizabeth was diagnosed with breast cancer at the age of 32. She died the following year. With two young sons and a fledgling practice, Bill was a busy man, but friends arranged a ski trip to Mad River Glen in Vermont in 1953 where he met his second wife Nancy. They were married the next year, and Bill and Nancy added four more boys to the family: Paul, Eric, Carl, and Chris.

Paralleling his own efforts at home, the postwar baby boom kept Bill busy and his practice grew along with the town. His willingness to make house-calls--with his classic Dr.’s bag (now in the collection of the Fairfield Historical Society)--earned him a lot of lasting appreciation and respect, but his green Triumph TR4 certainly took the edge off the driving. Bill was so well travelled in town that he knew the streets as well as any town police officer or firefighter.

Bill took on a partner, Frank Scholan, and in 1957 they moved their office to the Tide Mill Building, in Southport. Frank and Bill were later joined by Jerry Hemenway. The new Harbor Road waiting room had everything children could possibly want: typewriters that went DING when you got to the end, sample hinge and hasp hardware panels to open and shut, sets of helicopter control levers, lots of blocks, some ride-able wooden tractors, as well as a beautiful view with geese, ducks, and swans outside.

In 1974, Bill took a deep breath and bought the Tide Mill building from the Wakeman Boys Club and proceeded to renovate it with an eye towards its past, replacing the Tudor facade with cedar siding. Later, with retirement in mind, he and Nancy turned what had long ago been the restaurant chef’s apartment into a compact but airy home where the two lived with a serene view overlooking upper Southport harbor and across Long Island Sound.

Bill never stopped serving the community or growing professionally, finding time to serve as the doctor for Fairfield University’s football games and as Head of Pediatrics at Bridgeport Hospital. He did rounds at Yale-New Haven Hospital, helping to train new doctors, and was elected President of the Connecticut Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics. In this role, he was invited on an official visit to hospitals and clinics in China, well before travel there was common. Locally, he was a member of Fairfield’s Board of Health, serving as chair for part of his tenure. As if this wasn’t enough, he also joined the Fairfield Rotary Club, an organization that brought him pride, many friends, and a great deal of pleasure. Consistent attendance at Rotary meetings was a priority for him. After sixty-five years as a member, when attending meetings became a physical challenge, his attempt to resign was rebuffed and he remained a proud Rotarian until his death.

An excellent diagnostician, one neighbor cited Bill for saving his life by recognizing the complications of a dangerous insect bite during a chance conversation. In addition to taking a strong interest in lead abatement, Bill also continuously championed efforts to slow the spread of Lyme disease. When glaucoma clouded his eyesight, he dictated letters to town and state officials about effective measures that would improve public health.

Over his many years as a pediatrician, Bill saw thousands of patients--from the time they were born until they finally realized that the chairs in the waiting room were too small for them. In 1985 Bill retired, but he did not slow down. Fulfilling a long-held goal, he volunteered at the Albert Schweitzer Hospital in Haiti, contributing his career-long experience and expertise to this desperately poor nation. He and Nancy made several subsequent stays in Haiti where they both volunteered their services. Between visits, he helped raise funds for the Haitian hospital and located sources of medicine and supplies.

On the local front, Bill kept an abundance of vegetables growing around his deck, maintained a band of flowerboxes along the front of the Tide Mill, kept his eyes on the Mill River lead clean up, and plugged away at efforts to get the Tide Mill generating power again—eventually settling for solar.

He also “oversaw” (from atop his Tide Mill perch) the Mill River lead removal project and reconstruction of the two bridges that cross on either side of the Tide Mill Building. Because of him, the bridges look significantly different from the DOT’s original plan. On learning the design called for steel guardrails, Bill gathered photographs of appealing wooden guardrails from across Connecticut and forwarded his research to the DOT. Through perseverance, general staying power, and his Minnesota-brand of earnestness, we were all rewarded with bridges that are far more complementary to the area than those called for in the original plans. After years of construction under Bill’s watchful eye—and sometimes his cane--the bridge was completed in the summer of 2006. Bill and Nancy celebrated this milestone by hosting “The Great Bridge Party.” As a long-time fan of steel-drum music, Bill brought in a talented reggae band, and topped the whole thing off with everyone’s childhood fantasy: all-you-can-eat free ice cream from a parked Good Humor truck.

From the early days of his career to the last days of his life, Bill took an interest in others and remained a man of patience, caring, and humility. He got along with people of all ages and situations. He was an avid gardener, reader and birder, but he enjoyed doing things with others: sailing, playing tennis, skiing, and travelling. He sailed on countless races throughout Long Island Sound as well as a number of times to Bermuda. He played tennis frequently in the summer--and whenever he could in the winter. He skied at resorts created by brothers-in-arms from the 10th Mountain Division and travelled with Nancy in the United States and the Caribbean, to Europe, and to South America—always attending Rotary meetings wherever he could find them. More than once, he and Nancy left for somewhere without specific plans, made friends at the airport, travelled with them, and became lifelong friends.

Bill Kueffner was a true Christian who dedicated his life to helping other people. It was impossible for him to go anywhere in Fairfield without someone saying “Hi, Dr. Kueffner, I was one of your patients”-- often there are generations of patients—children and their parents. When he was awarded the Norman Parsells Award by the Rotary Club of Fairfield in 2007 for his outstanding lifetime of service, he responded by saying, “I’ve been around a long time. I guess they ran out of people to pick so they decided to lay this on me.” That was one of the biggest and possibly the only lie he ever told. From his dedicated efforts in Haiti to his work at attracting purple martins to his Tide Mill martin house, from helping research and shepherd the design and construction of handicap ramps at the Pequot Yacht Club and the Fairfield Beach Club to his care and concern for the health of every visitor in his later years, Bill Kueffner was an example to many—to patients, to friends, and to his sons, of what it means to be a good man.

He is survived by his 100 year old “big” sister, Mary Hill French, of Silver Spring Maryland, and by six sons and their families: Bruce and Kim, of Fairfield; John and Carolyn, of Waterbury Center Vermont; Paul and Sue, of Southport, Eric and Maria, of Juneau, Alaska, Carl, of Fairfield, Chris and Lynn, of Storrs; eight grandchildren: Elizabeth, Jeremy, Claire Goodwin, Elliott Gittelsohn, Emily, Allison, Tyler and Tannin; and three great-grandchildren: Ellie, James, and Sophie. He was predeceased by his first wife Elizabeth and second wife Nancy, and his sister Joan.

A Memorial Mass will be held on Saturday, February 18, 2017 at 1:00 p.m. at St. Anthony of Padua Church, 149 South Pine Creek Road in Fairfield. Burial will follow in Oak Lawn Cemetery. There will be a reception at 4:00 p.m. at the Pequot Yacht Club in Southport. In lieu of flowers, memorial donations may be made to the Hospital Albert Schweitzer Haiti, P.O. Box 81046, Pittsburgh, PA 15217.

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