| Notes |
- The Plain Dealer (Cleveland, OH)
January 14, 1998
Dr. James T. Stephens, a general surgeon, and his wife, Dr. Jeanne H., a pediatrician, helped found the Oberlin Clinic and the Kendal at Oberlin retirement community.
Dr. Stephens was the first president of the Oberlin Clinic. He led the community-based physicians group practice from its establishment in 1962 until 1974.
During his 30-year medical career in Oberlin before retiring in 1976, he served on the medical staff and the board of trustees of Allen Memorial Hospital.
In his retirement, Dr. Stephens was president of the Oberlin Retirement Community, a group that persuaded the Quaker-affiliated Kendal Corp. to establish a retirement complex in Oberlin.
He was a member of the Kendal at Oberlin Community Board of Trustees from 1991 to 1993. The Stephenses were among the first residents of the Kendal at Oberlin when it opened in October 1993.
Dr. Stephens died there Friday at the age of 88.
He was born in North Topeka, Kan., and grew up in California.
Dr. Stephens earned a bachelor's degree from the University of Southern California in 1932, a bachelor's degree in medicine from the University of Missouri in 1935 and a doctorate in medicine from Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia in 1937.
He and his wife, whom he met at the University of Missouri, served their internships at City Hospital in Cleveland. Dr. Stephens served his residency at Glenville Hospital, while his wife stayed at City Hospital to complete hers.
In 1939, Dr. Stephens took a job as a physician for a coal company in West Virginia, tending to the medical needs of workers in a mining community near Morgantown. During their three years there, he and his wife established a prenatal clinic and a well-baby clinic for the miners' families.
The Stephenses moved to Oberlin in 1942. During World War II, Dr. Stephens served as a major with the Army Medical Corps.
After the war, he returned to Oberlin, where he and his wife set up a joint practice.
For more than 25 years, Dr. Stephens was the team doctor for the Oberlin High School football team. He was a Lorain County Medical Society delegate to the Ohio State Medical Association for 11 years.
Dr. Stephens, a member of First Church in Oberlin, served on the American Medical Association's Committee on Religion. He co-wrote "The Christian as a Doctor," a book published in 1960.
In 1974, he and his wife spent six months as volunteers at the Chogoria Hospital in Kenya. They returned to the African hospital after retiring in 1976 and stayed there for a year.
They wrote about their experiences in the 1993 book "In the Shadow of Mt. Kenya".
Dr. Stephens and his wife received the Oberlin College Distinguished Community Service Award in 1980 and the University of Missouri's Medical Alumni Organization's Service Award in 1989.
In 1994, the Oberlin College Alumni Association presented the couple with its Alumni Medal for their service to the college.
Besides his wife of 60 years, survivors include daughters, Ann S. Molyneaux of Wilmette, Ill., and Sally S. Eglin of Ashtabula; son, John B. of Columbus; nine grandchildren; and a sister.
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1909 - 1998 (88 years)
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