Fergus Pope

BURNSVILLE—Dr. Fergus Pope—physician, Humanitarian, environmentalist, pacifist and devoted husband and father -- died peacefully at his home in Celo on April 19, 2013, after a lengthy battle with Parkinson's. He was 83. Pope was a prominent pediatrician and child psychiatrist who moved to Yancey County in 1969 with his wife, Ruth, and their three young children. At the time, he was the only pediatrician in the seven-county region of Western North Carolina, serving a population of 150,000, 40,000 of them children. Realizing that the area's health care needs would require far more significant resources than he alone could provide, Pope helped to raise more than $5 million in federal funds through the Appalachian Regional Commission, as well as state and local funds, to establish programs in maternal and child health, environmental services and community mental health, recruiting talented medical students and other health care professionals from all over the country—many of whom permanently relocated to the area. Among the many programs he founded and directed were the area's first Head Start program, the Children's Health Services Council, a Child Development Center serving Yancey and Mitchell counties, the Developmental Evaluation Clinic in Boone, N.C.—a seven-county program for children with developmental disabilities - and the state's first rural primary care clinics - the Yancey County Medical Clinic and the Bakersville Medical Clinic. In the 1980s and 1990s, Pope transitioned from pediatrics to psychiatry, a move occasioned by a serious accident his son Daniel suffered in 1982 at the age of 20. Diving off a boat into a shallow sand bar in Lake Houston, Daniel sustained a vertebral fracture, and both Pope and his wife Ruth immediately moved to Texas to aid in their son's recovery and rehabilitation. While in Houston, Pope completed a two-year residency in Child Psychiatry at the University of Texas and then returned to North Carolina to complete a three-year residency in General Psychiatry at UNC-Chapel Hill. Upon returning to Yancey County in 1988, he joined Blue Ridge Mental Health Center in Asheville as the staff child psychiatrist serving Yancey, Mitchell, Madison and Buncombe counties. While at BRMHC, he co-authored a proposal which resulted in a $2 million grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to develop a continuum of mental health services for children and youth in Western North Carolina. Pope's interest in medicine was sparked by an encounter with Albert Schweitzer—the legendary doctor, theologian and winner of the Nobel Peace Prize—in Gabon, Africa in the mid-1950s. After a brief stint as a U.S. Air Force pilot, Pope drove a 1951 four-wheel drive Land Rover across the Sahara Desert on his way to South Africa, stopping off in Lambarene, home to the hospital Schweitzer had founded deep in the equatorial jungle. The first person ever to arrive over land at the hospital, Pope was greatly inspired by the dedicated staff of professionals there, as well as by the African villagers being treated there. He forged a close personal and professional relationship with Schweitzer, who immediately put Pope to work supervising the construction of housing and treatment facilities for patients suffering from leprosy. It was this experience that inspired him to study medicine, and he subsequently enrolled at St. Bartholomew's Hospital Medical College at the University of London, returning to Lambarene during the summers to work with Schweitzer. In 1964—by then married to Ruth Mandl, daughter of the world-renowned classical pianist Lili Kraus, and with three young children of their own -- Pope and his family moved to Lambarene, where he developed a clinic for infants and a physician's assistant training program for young Gabonese students. Pope and his wife were the first hospital staffers to bring their children (then all under the age of five) to Lambarene. The Minister of Education took an interest in Pope's program, providing him with promising candidates; a year later, however, and shortly after Schweitzer died, the Gabonese government accused the Minister of Education of conspiring against the government and decided to expel all of his foreign-born friends and colleagues, including Dr. Pope. Forced to leave the country, Pope and his family returned to the U.S. and settled in Rochester, Minnesota, where he completed a Pediatric Residency at the Mayo Clinic. During the residency, he made several trips to Nigeria, setting up distribution systems to provide urgently needed food and medical supplies to victims of the Biafra Civil War. Upon the conclusion of his residency, Pope and his wife decided to move to Yancey County, drawn by the area's scenic beauty, the opportunity to serve others in need, and the desire to establish roots after so many years of travel. Fergus Pope was born in San Francisco, California, on October 25, 1929, and raised in Pennsylvania after his parents divorced. He attended The Hill School in Pottstown, PA, and obtained his undergraduate degree from Colgate University in Hamilton, NY. In addition to his ground-breaking work developing and implementing programs to deliver high quality, low-cost health care to the rural population—while at the same time maintaining a busy private practice and running his family farm in South Toe -- Pope also held a number of academic appointments, including Director of the Division of Community and Regional Services at Appalachian State University, Field Preceptor at the Harvard School of Public Health, Division of Maternal and Child Health, and Associate Clinical Professor in the Departments of Family Medicine and Psychiatry at UNC—Chapel Hill. He also served as Chairman of the Eastern Appalachian Children's Council; Consultant to the National Foundation of the March of Dimes; Yancey, Mitchell and Avery coordinator for the N.C. Regional Prenatal Program; chairman of the Area Board of Mental Health, Mental Retardation and Substance Abuse; and president-elect of the N.C. Council of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry. Pope is survived by his wife, Ruth, their children: Clara (Zazi) Pope of Los Angeles, CA; Daniel Pope of Asheville; Frannie Pope-Hohman of Tiburon, CA—10 minutes from the town of Sausalito, where her father was born; four grandchildren, Elliott Hohman, Oliver Hohman, Lili Cairl and Jeremy Cairl. He also leaves behind a brother, Philip Pope and wife of Vermont; and two sisters: Amanda Pope of Los Angeles, CA; and Diana Pope Rieger who lives near Philadelphia, PA. A memorial service is planned for Saturday, June 15, at 3:30 p.m. at Higgins Memorial Methodist Church in Burnsville. In lieu of flowers, kindly make donations to Hospice of Yancey County, 856 George's Fork Rd, Burnsville, NC 28714. For those who desire, condolences may be offered to the family under Dr. Pope's obituary at www.WestFamilyFuneralServices.com.