James Longcope, 70; had gift for aiding psychiatric patients

At the feet of James C. Longcope lay Casco, a hound mix whose presence was sometimes as soothing for each day's psychiatric patients as the doctor himself.

"Jim felt Casco could smell depression," said Dr. Longcope's wife, Joan. "And when someone in his office would cry, Casco would go to and comfort them."

Assuaging the mental burden each person carries was a calling Dr. Longcope first heard in the 1960s when, as a Navy officer and a general practitioner, he treated those who served in Vietnam and their families in the United States. He changed his specialty to psychiatry and spent 37 years seeing patients in the Emerson Hospital community.

Dr. Longcope, who had begun the process of retiring nearly two years ago, died of a heart attack Sept. 3 in the cottage he shared with his wife in Cedar Bay, Ontario, along Lake Erie in Canada. He was 70 and had moved to Westminster last year after living for many years in Groton, Harvard, and Acton.

"In a lot of ways, he was larger than life," said his son Daniel of Marlborough. "I think my brothers recognize this, too. His was the voice of conscience in our heads, the voice of reason whenever there was the thought of which road to go down. He lived such a life of honor and morality. He just always, always, always did the right thing."

Born in Philadelphia, Dr. Longcope grew up northeast of the city in the suburb of Cheltenham. The family was of modest means. His father, the oldest of 10 children, had left school after the eighth grade to help support his family and began working at a bank when he was 14. His mother was a secretary.

"That kind of legacy of taking care of your family is where his dedication came from," said Dr. Longcope's older sister, Jeanne Anderson of Pinehurst, N.C.

Witty and bright, he was a natural leader who earned, rather than sought, the respect of others, his sister said.

"Without seeming to study much, he got top grades, graduated at the top of his class, and was elected class president," she said. "A quiet leader, I guess I would say. He never seemed to run for anything; he was just elected. He seemed to draw people."

After graduating from Cheltenham High School, he went to Dartmouth College and graduated in 1959. At first, he went to Dartmouth Medical School, but took time off before his final year because of financial constraints back home. He finished his studies at Johns Hopkins Medical School.

Active in the civil rights movement, Dr. Longcope prodded officials to end segregation on the floors of Johns Hopkins Hospital in the early 1960s, and he was on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in 1963 when the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his "I Have a Dream" speech.

Upon becoming a doctor, he entered the Navy and served in Vietnam for 13 months as a lieutenant, then spent the remainder of his military duty at Hunters Point Naval Shipyard in San Francisco. In Vietnam, his sister said, "he was introduced to wounds he had never seen before." At Hunters Point, he began to recognize his gifts for treating war wounds that went beyond the physical.

Dr. Longcope moved to Acton in 1969 and began working as a general practitioner and married a couple of years later. That marriage, to Mary Lou McElwain of Portsmouth, N.H., ended in the 1980s.

His work sometimes consumed 80 hours a week, and at home Dr. Longcope unleashed creativity of a different kind. Along with drawing, painting, and sculpting, he could turn everyday trash such as packaging into useful items.

"If everyone recycled the way that he recycled, there wouldn't be a need for dumps," his son said.

When the woman Daniel Longcope was courting met his father for the first time, she forgot her coat at his house. Dr. Longcope returned it a few days later. Having noticed that a couple of buttons were missing, he had sewn on a full new set. And he had mended a torn pocket.

"There was always this thoughtfulness," his son said.

"He had no status symbols," Jeanne Anderson said. "He liked old things, old houses, rescued dogs from the pound."

Old patients, too. Dr. Longcope completed a psychiatric residency at Massachusetts Mental Health Center in Boston and opened a private practice in Concord. His specialties were geriatric psychiatry and treating patients who were seriously mentally ill.

"He loved mostly old people and very young people; in between, you take your chances," his sister said.

"He just really felt for people with those problems," said his wife, who was a social worker at Massachusetts Mental Health Center when she met Dr. Longcope. They married 17 years ago. "People knew he was there for them. When he made a connection, he just stayed with it, and they stayed with him."

One important connection was with his granddaughter, Catherine, whom he baby-sat every Friday.

"If she was sick, he would show up every day and rock her and sing to her," his son said. "He just loved her."

Dr. Longcope loved all aspects of nature, from stones he retrieved from the shore of Lake Erie to collecting and cooking wild mushrooms. He found solace sitting by the lake, watching birds migrate with the passing seasons.

At home in Massachusetts, he put up bird-feeders to nourish them along their journeys.

"I see in the backyard right now there are six feeders, the hummingbird feeder, the Baltimore oriole feeder," his wife said yesterday, speaking by phone from their Westminster home. "A hummingbird came to the feeder this morning, and it made me cry."

In addition to his wife, son, sister, and granddaughter, Dr. Longcope leaves two other sons, Nathaniel of Brooklyn and Timothy of Oakland.

A memorial service will be held at 11 a.m. tomorrow in First Parish Unitarian Church in Concord. Burial is private.