Woodring Pearson, MD and Benjamin R. Robinson, MD

Woodring Pearson was born in Nashville in 1915, and I am sure it was not long before he became the perfect "southern gentleman" we came to know as an adult. That is the way many mourners described him at his funeral.

He died on May 28 leaving his wife, Mary Elizabeth, to whom he had been married 63 years. He also left five children and their families.

Woody was educated in Tennessee and received his medical degree from Vanderbilt University in 1940. He was elected to AOA. He spent a year at Cornell University and then made his way West to surgical training at the University of California, San Francisco. One of his surgical professors was Dr. Leon Goldman, the father of Diane Feinstein. Woody recalled her joining surgical rounds as a child.

World War II. interrupted Woody's residency for 3 years in the US Navy.

Benjamin Robinson was born in Worcester, Massachusetts, in 1919, the "middle" of five children. He received his undergraduate degree from the University of Rhode Island and his medical degree at Yale University.

Like Woody, he spent time in the service, in the U.S. Army, where he learned to play the zither and continued it all his life.

When Dan Kelley, former business manager at the clinic, made a trip to Austria, Ben directed him to have dinner at a certain restaurant where his zither teacher was the entertainer.

Ben's wife, Rose, preceded him in death in 2000. They had four daughters, but unhappily, Judy, the eldest, died of cancer. She had been an attorney and practiced in Sacramento for a time

Both of these fine physicians were selected by the Woodland Clinic because of their excellent training and medical experience in different areas of the country, and they helped complete the formation of the clinic Dr. Fairchild had envisioned in his early days.

The clinic was to be a group of physicians of a variety of specialties, working together under one roof. This meant an easy exchange of information among the physicians caring for a patient, and ready referral to a physician who was better able to serve the patient's needs. Compensation for the partners was equal and based on "equal effort, equal pay."

Ben was a most intense internist, and he became my doctor when I joined the clinic in 1973. He never quit digging to find the problem and then treated it appropriately.

Everything had to move rapidly for Ben. He was chairman of the building committee when the new clinic building was built on Fairchild Court. I recall him searching all the carpet suppliers in San Francisco for just the right carpet, some of which still survives. He loved nice cars and had a variety of them.

Woody was devoted to his community and spent many years on the school board. He was an active member of the Woodland Memorial Hospital Board.

When Woody joined the clinic in 1949, I had recently started my family practice in the town or Orland. Both of us well remembered the young teenager whom I sent to him with a hole in the palm of his hand, the result of putting it over the muzzle of a shotgun on a pheasant hunting day.

Woody was devoted to his family, who are striking evidence of his fine character. He loved to hunt. He was a serious and creative woodworker, and some of his work can still be seen at the clinic.

A year or two after Woody arrived, Spencer Chester completed his residency at UCSF and joined the Surgery Department.

Both of these doctors were brought to the Woodland Clinic by Dr. Homer Woolsey who had come from UCSF himself and, until the two new surgeons arrived, did a full variety of surgery alone.

They have not only left us a legacy, and an organization, but many fond memories. We miss them. We miss them all.

- Buren Krahling, MD