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Robert Emery Brownlee '33

Sep. 16, 1911-Jan. 31, 2006

Robert Emery Brownlee ’33, a dedicated physician who practiced in the Boston area for almost 40 years, was born on September 16, 1911, in Holly, CO. A son of Frederick S., a real estate broker, and Edna Emery Brownlee, he grew up in Geneva, NY, and was graduated in 1929 from Geneva High School. Recommended by its principal as “in every respect a first-class boy,” Bob Brownlee was admitted to Hamilton that year. He joined Delta Kappa Epsilon as well as the Choir, and committed time away from his studies to Hamilton Life, becoming its associate editor. Elected to DT, he also had a flair for dramatics, as evidenced by his stage presence in a campus production of Hamlet. Modest and self-deprecating about his many talents, he left the Hill with his diploma in 1933, on the way to Harvard Medical School.

Having “identified with the small town family doctor who took care of us when I was growing up,” Bob Brownlee had set his sights on a career in medicine. After acquiring his M.D. from Harvard in 1937, he began his career-long association with the New England Deaconess Hospital, which became his “home away from home,” and where he would serve two terms as chief of the medical staff. However, in practicing as a primary-care physician, he never ceased to consider himself a family doctor, and this was reflected in his total commitment to the care and welfare of his patients.

In his early years as a physician, Bob Brownlee was an instructor at Harvard Medical School and taught courses at Boston City Hospital. During World War II City Hospital formed a military hospital unit, and in 1943, when it went overseas to England, Dr. Brownlee went with it as an officer in the U.S. Army Medical Corps. First assigned to a field hospital in Stockbridge, where many of his patients were military personnel suffering from combat exhaustion, he subsequently served as chief of the medical staff at a station hospital in London.

Released from the Army as a major after the war’s end in 1946, Bob Brownlee returned to the Boston area, where he would maintain offices in Brookline and Wellesley, and serve for many years on the staff of Newton-Wellesley Hospital as well as the Deaconess in Boston. With his wife, the former Mary V. Carroll, whom he had wed on December 28, 1940, in Holyoke, MA, he continued to reside in Wellesley for many years, and there they reared their three children. In 1983, three years after the death of his wife, who had long suffered from Alzheimer’s disease, he was married to Dorothy S. Hunnewell. After he retired from his practice in 1985, the couple moved to Gloucester, MA.

Known for his “quiet wisdom, wonderful sense of humor, and caring and interest in others,” Robert E. Brownlee, in retirement, was actively involved with Beyond War, a peace organization, as well as peace movement committees. Afflicted in recent years with Parkinson’s disease, he was residing in a retirement community in Exeter, NH, when he died on January 31, 2006, in his 95th year. Predeceased by his second wife, he is survived by a son, Carroll R. Brownlee; two daughters, Ellen LaHait and Maureen O’Dowd; and nine grandchildren, eight great-grandchildren and a brother.

Necrology Home

Note: Memorial biographies published prior to 2004 will not appear on this list.



Necrology Writer and Contact:
Christopher Wilkinson '68
Email: Chris.Wilkinson@mail.wvu.edu

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