Stephen Peabody; combined modern medicine, old-time care

DR. STEPHEN PEABODY

In the days when doctors made house calls, patients of Wellesley physician Stephen Peabody could count on him to arrive when needed, even at 2 a.m., nattily dressed in a suit, white shirt, and signature bow tie.

They appreciated his caring, his medical expertise, his practicality, and his dry wit. When he retired in 1994 after nearly 50 years in practice, Dr. Peabody was among a vanishing breed of family doctors who worked around the clock with patients from birth to old age, said Marcie Holtje of Wellesley, his secretary for 38 years.

"Steve was not a 9-to-5 doctor," she said. "They don't make them that way anymore."

Dr. Peabody, who was affiliated with Newton-Wellesley Hospital from internship until retirement, died Jan. 26 at Avery Manor in Needham of obstructive pulmonary disease and osteoporosis. He was 89 and had lived at Avery Manor for six years.

His office was always in his home, first in a small house in Wellesley and since 1955 in a 14-room Colonial in Wellesley Hills.

In the 1950s, Holtje said, office visits never cost more than $3. At the time, there were many Italian immigrants in Wellesley who would bring the doctor fruit from their trees, vegetables from their gardens, and homemade wine, "not as payment but because they loved him."

He delivered hundreds of babies and did so well into the 1960s. He wore bow ties because pediatric patients kept sucking on and pulling his long ones, Holtje said. A patient kept him supplied with homemade bow ties.

Six feet tall with a kind face and sparkling blue eyes, Dr. Peabody was known for his soothing manner with children. Arline Wahn of Wellesley recalled that when her son was 2 he always cried in a doctor's office, "but not the time Dr. Peabody came to our house. It was the first time the baby smiled at a doctor."

"He made you feel it was his privilege to take care of you," said Dorothy Reed of Wellesley, whose three children had been patients. He delivered one of Reed's daughters, spent five hours one Thanksgiving Day in the emergency room with another one, and stitched a cut her son had sustained in a hockey game at 11 at night.

"He was very quiet," Reed said. "He never played up to kids. He talked to them in such a kind way, he calmed them down."

Albert Mitchell Jr., a Wellesley patient of Dr. Peabody's for 30 years, recalled a Christmas Day house call by Dr. Peabody. Mitchell described him as "an old-time doctor with a very nice bedside manner. He kept up with all the new developments in medicine and knew who all the good specialists were."

Dr. Peabody's grandson, James Lambert Peabody of Hingham, who lived with him for 10 years after his own father died, described him as "a pretty cool guy" who put up with the comings-and-goings of his grandson's friends.

Dr. Peabody was just as kind to, and respected by, his colleagues, said Dr. James Todd, who worked with him at Newton-Wellesley and took over his practice in 1993. He was always considered "an excellent diagnostician," according to Robin Armstrong of Wellesley, whose late husband, Stewart, had been a colleague and friend since college. Dr. Peabody was their family doctor, too.

For many years, Dr. Peabody was the physician for Babson College in Wellesley.

Stephen Davis Peabody was born in Okanogan, Wash., to the Rev. Arthur C. and Gladys (Davis) Peabody. He grew up in New Bedford, where his father was rector of St. James Episcopal Church. His mother died when he was 7.

Until his father remarried, the five children stayed at the home of a doctor and his wife. It was there that he decided to become a doctor, said his sister, Sylvia Peabody of Brookline. The family was reunited when Rev. Peabody became rector of St. Paul's Episcopal Church in Newburyport.

Dr. Peabody graduated from Governor Dummer Academy, Bard College, and Tufts Medical School. He married Miriam Chandler shortly before joining the Army in 1942 as a captain, postponing his internship, and was sent with the 34th Division to France.

Dr. Peabody's unit landed on Omaha Beach several days after the invasion of Normandy. He then went on to the Battle of the Bulge. In both battles, his unit was sent to the front to provide emergency medical treatment.

Away from the office, Dr. Peabody relaxed by fishing, sailing his day sailer, Mistral, on Cape Cod, where he and his family had a home, and cross-country skiing.

His wife died in 1986 after 43 years of marriage.

"Steve lost his wife and their two sons in a five-year period, but he never let his tragic loss affect the care of patients," Todd said.

In addition to his sister and grandson, Dr. Peabody leaves another sister, Katherine Crouse of Ventura, Calif.

Services have been held.