Necrology

Henry Ernest Wolfe, Jr. '44

Aug. 17, 1922-Oct. 21, 2019

After a long life that included a successful career as a urologist and service in the U.S. Navy, Henry Ernest Wolfe, Jr. ’44 died on Oct. 21, 2019. Wolfe, of Champaign, Ill., was 97.

As noted in a published obituary, he possessed a quick wit and was always ready with a pun or a joke, remarks that came to be known as “Wolferisms.” A staunch Chicago Cubs fan, he was delighted to see his team win the World Series in his lifetime.

Wolfe was born on Aug. 17, 1922, in Binghamton, N.Y., the son of Henry Wolfe, Sr., a banker, and the former Bess Jones, a homemaker. He graduated from Binghamton Central High School before moving on to college where he took premed coursework and was involved with the Squires. In an alumni reunion yearbook, he cited as his special Hamilton memories, “The days of the ‘weather men, 1942, 1943, the long hike from Clinton.’”

Wolfe attended Albany Medical College, graduating in 1947. From that year until 1956, he was an active-duty physician in the U.S. Navy. He did his internship in 1947-48 at St. Albans Naval Hospital in Queens, N.Y., then spent the next two years in his urology residency at St. Albans and New York Hospital-Cornell Medical Center. In 1950, the Korean War interrupted his training, and he was deployed on the ship USS Thomas Jefferson. Wolfe, who took part in the Inchon landing, departed the Navy with the rank of lieutenant colonel.

The same year he left the service, Wolfe went to work as a urologist and urology surgeon at the Carle Clinic and Hospital in Urbana, Ill., where he would spend the remainder of his career and become chief of urology. He also served as chief of staff for the Carle Hospital Foundation. Wolfe is remembered as a passionate and dedicated doctor. Among his professional affiliations, he was a member of the American Medical Association, the American Urological Association, the Illinois State Medical Society, and he was a diplomat of the American College of Surgeons.

Active in the community, Wolfe served as a member and president of the Urbana Chamber of Commerce and the Urbana Lions Club. He was a member of the First Presbyterian Church in Urbana. After he retired in 1991, he loved to play bridge and golf during winters in Florida.
Survivors include four children, four grandchildren, three stepchildren, and step-grandchildren. His wife, the former Marion Bigelow, died in 2007; he was married two times previously.

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