Dr. Edward Webster, 83, expert in radiology at MGH
Scheduled to have a major operation, Edward W. Webster arrived at the hospital well prepared -- for work.
''His doctor said he had never seen anyone check in for open-heart surgery with a typewriter and a briefcase," said Dr. Webster's daughter, Susan MacPhee.
Dr. Webster was a radiologist whose devotion to his job was such that on another occasion, he had a minor heart attack on the way home from work and paid it little mind. The next morning, he collapsed at the Charles/MGH Red Line station and had to be dissuaded by another physician on the platform from dusting himself off and heading to his office at Massachusetts General Hospital.
The doctor told him, ''You can't go to work, you're having a heart attack," MacPhee said.
Dr. Webster, 83, shed the Cockney accent of his London row house upbringing en route to becoming an international authority on radiology and professor emeritus at Harvard Medical School. Dr. Webster, who suffered from Alzheimer's disease, was hospitalized with pneumonia and died Dec. 17. He had been living at the Carleton-Willard Village retirement community in Belmont.
The American College of Radiology awarded a gold medal to Dr. Webster in 1991 for 40 years of contributions to the field, a decade before he retired. He formerly was director of the radiological sciences division at Mass. General and accumulated enough publications, honors, and high-level appointments -- from the National Institutes of Health to the US Department of Energy to the World Health Organization -- to fill a 38-page curriculum vitae.
''He came from very humble beginnings in the East End of London," said a son, Edward R. Webster of Topsham, Maine. ''My father elevated himself through his academic achievements and accomplishments."
The only son among four children growing up in a home with no indoor plumbing or central heating, he earned scholarships and a chance at a university education.
''Once he excelled in school, he was one of these children who was retaught to speak . . . more or less along the lines of 'My Fair Lady,' " his son said. ''If he had kept his Cockney accent, he never would have made it to university."
He graduated from the University of London with a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering, with first-class honors, and a doctorate in the same subject three years later.
Dr. Webster first came to study in the United States in 1949, at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, then returned to England. He moved back to the United States for good in 1953, joining the radiology department at Mass. General and beginning to teach at Harvard Medical School.
His areas of expertise included the use of radiation in breast cancer and leukemia research and the impact of low-level radiation on people. Dr. Webster invented a lightweight dental apron that offered protection from X-rays, his son said, but among his proudest accomplishments were two very different media experiences.
As an expert on radiation, he was a guest of Ted Koppel on ''Nightline" after the Three Mile Island nuclear accident. And, his son said, he always was quietly proud of his entry in ''Who's Who in America."
''Part of it also was the fact that it was 'Who's Who in America.' It wasn't 'Who's Who in Britain,' " Edward Webster said. At the ceremony when he was awarded the gold medal by the radiology association, Dr. Webster noted his pride in being an American.
While rising in the field of radiology, Dr. Webster's family grew. His first wife, Irene, was diabetic and died a few months after the birth of their second son. A few years later, friends set up Dr. Webster with Dorothea Wood, a widow with three children. It was April Fool's Day. They stayed up talking until 3 a.m. Six weeks later, they married.
''We all knew something was up because she started writing letters," said Peter Webster, one of Dorothea's sons.
MacPhee found some of the letters her father wrote while packing up her parents' home prior to their move to the retirement community and was surprised to see a different side of the scientist. ''It was amazing to hear him so amorous," said MacPhee, who lives in Belmont. ''It was very sweet."
''They were crazy about each other -- sometimes to the exclusion of the kids," said Peter Webster, who lives in Jamaica Plain. ''It was a wonderful relationship in many ways."
The Websters were married for more than 40 years, living most of that time in Lexington. Dr. Webster was ''always very proper. He was always a gentleman," recalled Beth Haire, his secretary at MGH for nearly 16 years. And always more than a little British, despite his affection for his adopted country.
On weekends, promptly at 9 a.m., he would rouse any child still asleep by calling up the stairs ''wakey, wakey, wakey," said another son, Mark Webster of La Crosse, Wisc. ''You could almost hear his mom saying that to him when he was young."
And there was Dr. Webster's affection for kippers, ''an acquired, British taste," Edward Webster said.
Merging the two families and growing up with a work-driven father with exacting standards left the children clinging, in different ways, as Alzheimer's weakened Dr. Webster. ''None of the kids were ready to let him go," MacPhee said.
''It's strange to go from the beginnings of the family in 1961, when it was pins and needles and we didn't know what would happen, to the time of his death when I'm saying I'm proud to be his son," Peter Webster said.
In addition to his wife, sons, and daughter, Dr. Webster leaves another son, John of Londonderry, N.H.; another daughter, Anne Wolfe of Mahweh, N.J.; a sister, Margaret Bates of Bishops Stortford, England; and six grandchildren.
A service will be held Jan. 27 at 2 p.m. at Carleton-Willard Village.
