McDonald Commentary: Mourning the Death of Christian Surgeon Carl Birchard

Posted

The past week prayers for Dee Birchard of Centralia and her family filled my heart after I learned about the sudden death of her husband, Dr. Carl Birchard, Sept. 10 as they traveled on a 14-day Baltic Heritage Cruise in northern Europe.

While traveling between Bruges in Belgium and Copenhagen, Denmark, Dee returned to her cabin to rest while Carl decided to read in a quiet space aboard the Sapphire Princess. In the afternoon, Dee heard an announcement over the loudspeaker for the medical team to go to the Princess Theater. 

Five minutes later, a knock sounded on the door. When she opened it, she saw a nurse and asked “Is it my husband?” The woman said yes.

“Is he gone?” Dee asked.

“Yes.”

Dee knew then that the descending abdominal aortic aneurysm Carl was scheduled to have repaired Oct. 8 had burst. He was 78. She said Monday that during earlier conversations, her husband had said he never wanted to linger with an illness. “I want to be here one minute and gone the next,” he told her. 

“That’s exactly what happened.”

The Birchards were traveling with their former pastor, Rev. Mark Goodwin, and his wife, Debbie. They supported her during the trip to Copenhagen. Within hours of settling into a hotel room, Dee’s daughter-in-law, Rhonda Birchard of Lake Oswego, Ore., arrived to help.

“God took care of me,” Dee said. “It was so beautiful.”

My husband and I visited with Dee and Carl at a wedding reception in June at the Centralia Church of the Nazarene’s fellowship hall, which the Birchards helped construct. We spoke about our upcoming trip to visit our son in Finland and their impending Baltic cruise. We enjoyed our time with them, never imagining that my husband would nearly die on our trip and that Carl would pass away on his.

“Carl lived life to the fullest,” Dee said. “He expended himself for everyone. He was the most selfless person I’ve ever met. He would do anything for anybody.”

The day before he died, the Birchards spent nine hours on a strenuous shore excursion exploring Bruges and Ghent in Belgium. It was Dee’s birthday.

A memorial service is planned October 20 at the Centralia Church of the Nazarene, where Carl and Dee taught Sunday school, supported world missions, and participated in local benevolent projects. They’ve kept God and their love for him at the center of their lives.

Carl, an orthopedic surgeon, worked at Washington Orthopaedic Center in Centralia for 28 years. Dee, a registered nurse, worked with her husband for 17 years. They have two sons — Kevin and Keith, whose wife is Cecelia — and five grandchildren (Nate, Grace, Ezra, Hope and Jane). 



Until he was 15, Carl lived in Guatemala, where his grandparents began mission work in 1904, his mother worked as a nurse and his father a missionary. He completed his education in the United States, but his love for Central America spurred him to travel on humanitarian trips to Nicaragua, Swaziland, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Panama, and Mexico. 

He had traveled to 101 countries on all seven continents, including a month spent in Papua New Guinea, where he and his son, Dr. Keith Birchard, performed 30 orthopedic surgeries and helped with at least 15 other operations. He also participated in medical mission and construction trips sponsored through Washington Orthopaedic and their church.

He graduated from high school in Wisconsin and earned his bachelor’s degree in chemistry and biology from Olivet Nazarene University in Bourbonnais, Illinois, in 1962, and his medical degree from the University of Illinois’ College of Medicine on the Chicago campus, earning honors.

Carl and Dee were married March 22, 1963, in Kankakee, Ill., and only three weeks later, a tornado swept their trailer home into the air, over a car, and onto another trailer. It split open like a cardboard box, and Dee suffered a deep stab wound in the elbow. Carl pushed up the roof of their smashed 1957 Volkswagen so he could rush her to the hospital. From 1968 to 1978, they did jungle clinic work in the Panama Canal Zone, flying in a one-engine plane to land on a World War II airstrip and climbing into a dugout canoe to travel upriver to an open-walled school on stilts to see patients. Carl did his orthopedic training in Gorgas Hospital in Panama, where he was the first doctor to perform a total hip surgery.

The family moved to Chehalis in 1978 and joined Washington Orthopaedic, working with founder Dr. Larry Hull, who died April 28 in San Antonio, Texas. Both men devoted much of their time and talent to helping less fortunate people through medical missions. Carl was named 2004 Doctor of the Year by Providence Centralia Hospital.

“I’m a Christian,” Carl told a reporter in 2002. “I believe that God calls us to do this kind of work, and I’m fortunate enough to work with a practice that supports this work.”

The Birchards often opened their former 5,200-square-foot home on a hill above South Scheuber Road north of Centralia, a brick-and-oak mansion completed by master builder Frank Mason of Chehalis in 1992, to convalescing missionaries and families in need of shelter, demonstrating Christian hospitality. Hawthorn Gables, designed after English country manors they saw during their travels, was featured on Visiting Nurses Foundation fundraising tours. Hand-carved above the fireplace were the words “God is our Refuge.” 

The Birchards moved to Stillwater Estates two years ago; their home sold in late July. 

“The most important thing about him was his humility,” Dee said, “and his desire to serve God and humanity.”

The couple began every morning with a prayer, which Dee said Monday with her hand on her husband’s placemat: “May God make us a blessing to all with whom we come in contact today. May we be your eyes, and ears and arms of love to whomever needs you today.”

•••

Julie McDonald, a personal historian from Toledo, may be reached at memoirs@chaptersoflife.com.