Richard D. Wittrup

October 2, 1926 - January 14, 2021

Richard Derald Wittrup was born in a farmhouse near Marne, Iowa on a rainy Saturday in 1926, the only son and first child of Otis and Ruby Wittrup. The story is that his mother left a cow half milked to give birth in the house on a straw tick. Muddy roads kept the doctor away. Ruby's mother appeared the next day to help, having traveled 18 miles by horse and wagon. While the family farmed places outside of Elk Horn and Fiscus, Richard received his elementary education in a one-room country schoolhouse in Polk Township, Shelby County, Iowa. He finished 8th grade at age 12. Being too young for High School, Richard worked on the family farm. Much of his family life revolved around the Merrill's Grove Baptist Church where he developed a love for music, singing, and extended family gatherings, all themes that continued throughout his life. Thinking school might offer alternatives to what he viewed as the drudgery of farming, he began agitating for a change. When he was 16, the church pastor purchased a school bus to transport his own five children to school, collecting fees from other families whose children also needed a ride to pay for it. Richard secured the job driving the bus, enabling him attend to Harlan High School. These foundational beginnings shaped his humble and pragmatic approach to life, relationships and career. From June, 1945 until April, 1947 Richard served in the US Army, 16 months of which were spent in Naples, Italy. There, he served as a secretary for a general supervising reconstruction in Europe and learned to type. He was discharged with the rank of Staff Sergeant. Returning to civilian life, he aspired to become a journalist for a national paper. A liberal arts education seemed the best preparation. He enrolled at the University of Missouri. In June of 1949, he married Marilyn Sorensen of Harlan, Iowa, beginning a union they both enjoyed immensely for 71 years. After a brief stint in Council Bluffs, they moved with their infant firstborn and house trailer to Columbia, MO. In December of 1950, he earned his bachelor's degree in Economics, a subject he found continually stimulating through the rest of his life. Hoping to advance his journalism career, he enrolled as a graduate student at the University of Chicago. Here he was introduced to a new world of fascinating ideas. The Army had taught him to type. He quickly found work preparing patient discharge summaries at the University Hospital. He caught the eye of Ray Brown, an icon in the emerging field of Hospital Administration. Ray convinced Richard that life as a journalist would pale in comparison to the challenges of healthcare. After being appointed to an administrative position in the University Health Clinics, he received an MBA in 1955, thus beginning a lifelong career in health care management. In 1957, at the age of 31, Richard was asked to become founding Administrator of the University of Kentucky Hospital in Lexington. When he asked where the hospital was located, he was shown a freshly plowed field. In 1960, the newly constructed hospital opened its doors, and he oversaw its operation for the next eight years. With Marilyn and now two young boys, he served as the youngest hospital administrator in the country. Richard also began writing for the hospital journals of the day. His sons remember him singing in various barbershop choruses. Summers and Christmases saw Richard and Marilyn, now with three children, maintaining their roots in Harlan, IA surrounded by their respective families. In 1968, he was recruited to Boston to assist in the formation of a new teaching hospital to be affiliated with Harvard's Medical School. Richard was deeply involved in the development of the new hospital building, as well as wrangling the Boston Brahmin-dominated boards of the three hospitals that combined to form Affiliated Hospitals Center. It was soon renamed Brigham and Women's in honor of those hospitals that led to its founding. He credited the common sense he had developed on the farm to his success in navigating the aristocratic and political circles he and Marilyn found themselves in. Richard continued to write and published extensively on topics ranging from healthcare to the role of culture in human behavior and current events. In 1978 he accepted an offer to be the founding administrator of the King Abdul-Aziz University Hospital, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, the first teaching hospital in the Kingdom. Again he was shown a patch of dirt where the first hospital was to be located. 28 mobile home units were interconnected, hospital equipment imported, staff recruited, and in 1980 a 120-bed hospital was opened. Over the next 8 years a small American team guided the newly minted Saudi administrators in the operation of their hospital while planning for the 1,200 bed hospital that was to follow. During this time, requests for help with planning, staffing and management of a number of hospitals and clinics across the Kingdom and other countries from Jordan to Pakistan, resulted in always interesting and challenging work. Along the way, Richard met the Saudi King, attended the wedding of the King of Jordan's daughter, and advised the Aga Khan. In his spare time, he could be found singing in productions of the Jeddah Light Opera Society, reading voraciously, enjoying an active social life with adventurous travel, and all manner of "colorful" experiences including an airline hijacking. In 1988, Richard and Marilyn relocated to Detroit, MI where he served as an executive advisor to the CEO of the Henry Ford Hospital System. Subsequently he held a similar position with the Methodist Hospital System in Houston. When asked how he liked the work, he said "What's not to like? I get to have all of the fun with none of the responsibility". His administrative and management skills were valued by all who knew him. Leaders in the churches he and Marilyn attended around the world also invariably asked him to get involved. He retired for the last time in 1996. Life continued to be filled with extensive travel, continued curiosity about the world, and close contacts with many friends and family in Scituate, Harlan and abroad. Those of you who received his annual Christmas letter know that he continued to produce insightful and well-crafted writings on a wide range of topics through the end of his life. Richard died in mid-January, 2021 in Harlan, Iowa as he was preparing for his discharge after a brief hospital stay. He is survived by his children, Kenton (Sandra) Wittrup of Lynn, MA, Alan (Shannon Keith) Wittrup of Scituate, MA, Eleanor (Steve Sochacki) Wittrup of Valley Springs, CA, Katrina (Nigel) Taylor of Sancreed, Cornwall England and Steve (Jennifer Logan) Borst of Salt Lake City, UT; five grandchildren and sister Mary Louise (James) Landfried of Cambridge, MA.