William Hampton Bachman

William Hampton Bachman, 88, passed away in Hamilton, Montana on Thursday, September 25, 2014 as the result of complications following heart surgery.

Born at home in a blizzard on February 4, 1926 in Shamokin, PA, he was the only child of William P. Bachman and Annabelle Todd Bachman.

Bill's early years were spent in Williamsport, PA. He had fond memories of his boyhood and teenage years, which included summers spent at Camp Kline, along Pine Creek, where he developed a love of the outdoors, first as a Cub and then a Boy Scout. He eventually attained the rank of Eagle Scout.

"The world seemed to expand when it came time for junior high school... new friends, girls, sports, new subjects, playing (?) the clarinet - not necessarily in that order - made life more interesting" he wrote in a lengthy and informative autobiography penned about five years ago.

"Williamsport High School was a major development in our lives. Three junior high schools shared the same high school so our friendships expanded considerably. But probably what was uppermost in our lives was how we were going to fit into a world involved in yet another war. This was a new experience for us. How could young, carefree people suddenly adapt to such a dreadful and uncertain future?"

Enlisting (to his parents' dismay) in the US Coast Guard at the age of 17 in October 1943, he served on various vessels in the Pacific from December 1944. Aboard the USS Cambria he took part in the invasion of Okinawa in April 1945, and in September '45 was among the first troops to go ashore after the atom-bombing of Nagasaki. He was discharged in May 1946 with the rank of Signalman Second Class. "My father" he noted, "carefully plotted all of my trips back and forth across the Pacific and calculated that I travelled a total of 57,816.38 miles... he was a very precise man."

Hastening to catch up with the world, he completed a BS in Biology at Bucknell University in three years, graduating in 1949. This was followed by an MS in Physiology in 1950.

Following a long-distance wartime courtship, he married his high school sweetheart, Sheila Sweyer, in 1950. After graduating from Temple University School of Medicine in Philadelphia in 1954 he undertook a two-year internship at Williamsport Hospital, serving as Chief Resident in his second year. Impassioned by all things medical, he developed a special interest in obstetrics, and estimated he had delivered more than 200 babies by the end of his residency, including around 40 while in medical school.

Convinced that family medicine - as we call it today - with its various challenges was for him, in July 1956 he took up an opportunity to partner with Lane Webster, an MD with a small general practice in Wellsboro, PA, a rural community of 4000 in Tioga County.

The purchase of a small farm on the edge of town soon followed. Described by Bill as "a rustic showplace much to our liking" and Sheila as "An old but larger house, a barn [and] a decrepit carriage shed... on 60 acres of pasture, woods, and stream all within a mile or so of the office and the hospital", it was to be home to four children and many happy memories for the next 25 years.

Running a country medical practice proved to be challenging, rewarding and "full of the unexpected." It involved many late nights and weekends, including one memorable Sunday afternoon in flu season that involved 17 house calls all over the county, with a party line operator tracking his progress and adding patients as he went.

Bill's memoir contains many fascinating anecdotes of this nature, but the following passage circa 1957 neatly summarizes his views on practicing medicine: "The fee for an office call was $3.00, a house call was $5.00 with a small mileage charge, a delivery $60.00. Making money was not a priority with us, we wanted to give our patients the best care possible, being available at all times. We figured by accomplishing this we would be adequately compensated so that we would never be motivated by making money. This philosophy held up through all my professional career."

Testament to this philosophy was the success of his practice, which grew to include four more GPs and a physician assistant in a purpose-built clinic. There was also a thriving relationship with the Soldiers and Sailors Memorial Hospital, where Bill served two terms as President of the Medical and Dental Staff and was Chief of Obstetrics for 20 years. Throughout the 1960s and '70s he and his colleagues made an enormous contribution to the permanent establishment of modern broad-based medical care in Tioga County.

In 1981 he accepted a position as Associate Director of the Department of Family and Community Medicine at Lancaster General Hospital and Chief of the Walter L. Aument Family Health Center in Quarryville, PA. His role involved a significant amount of teaching and mentoring, and over the next ten years he established several important programs essential to family practice and influenced many budding physicians with his methods and philosophies.

Professional achievements and accolades included membership of the American Medical Association and Pennsylvania Medical Society and life membership of the American Academy of Family Physicians. In 1990 he received a Distinguished Service Award from the Lancaster City and County Medical Society "in recognition of his many years of dedicated, unselfish service to his patients, his community and his profession."

To counterbalance his prodigious work ethic Bill also had a wicked sense of humor and a finely-tuned sense of fun - perhaps a legacy from his paternal grandmother, "a homemaker who delighted in arising with the sun on a Monday morning so she could get her wash out early, dried and ironed before noon so she could go the movies in the afternoon."

Though not really a moviegoer, he delighted in nature and the outdoor life. Hunting, fishing, skiing and canoeing were all favourite activities that he both mastered and shared with his wife and children as much-anticipated family activities. He and Sheila also enjoyed snowmobiling and trail bike riding on the back roads of northern Pennsylvania. He belonged to Larrys Creek Fish and Game Club in Salladasburg, PA for almost 50 years and served as president from 1971-1975.

Bachman is a Swiss-German name that means "man who lives by the brook", and no better words could describe him. From early days fishing with his father, to a stint as Aquatic Director at Camp Kline after the war, to sailing, fishing and lobstering in Orient Bay and Long Island Sound, and casting flies into the streams and rivers of Pennsylvania, Montana, Alaska, New Brunswick, Tasmania and New Zealand, Bill was never more alive than when near water. Even the property in Wellsboro was serendipitously named "Hoover Brook Farm", after the stream that ran through it.

Bill and Sheila made the most of their retirement years, first in Orient, NY, where they lived for ten years before moving in their late 70s to Hamilton, in the Bitterroot Valley of western Montana. Though not great world travellers (apart from a number of trips to visit their son Bill and wife Sally in Australia), they were always up for an adventure, which is how the rest of the family always saw their Montana years. There they became favorite visitors to Firehole Ranch, where they competed with each other to see who could catch the most and the biggest trout. Sheila almost always won.

Like so many of his generation, Bill made a rich life out of humble material. Many of those riches were the intangible things he gave to others: respect, compassion, genuine interest in their activities and ambitions, encouragement, useful insights and good advice.

To let him have the final say: "I was blessed with parents who were always loving but not so preoccupied with me that they did not have outside friends and interests. They always supported and advised me but did give me the opportunity to make decisions and backed me up whatever the result. We never were affluent but they would have done anything to assure me an education. Any values I may have can be attributed to their guidance, as they were good people with high morals and Christian ideals. As I grow older I realize how much of an effect our parents have on our lives and how fortunate I was and the appreciation I now have for all their love and support."

Not only his family but many others who knew him would recognize the man himself in those words.

He was not openly sentimental (except when it came to dogs) and would have scoffed at the amount of information and observation offered in this summary of his life. At the top of a list of post-mortem instructions he prepared a few years ago was the directive "No big fuss. Just do it." Secretly, though, he would have been pleased that a few of his many achievements and qualities are remembered in this way.

He is survived by Sheila, his wife of 64 years, sons Bill, David and Todd, their spouses Sally Rodd, Julie Osgood, and Elizabeth Bronson, daughter Barbara and her husband Roger Josephian, and five grandchildren.

The family requests that donations in memoriam be made to Doctors Without Borders (MAC.decins Sans FrontiAres) https://donate.doctorswithoutborders.org/tribute.cfm.