St. Paul's Episcopal Church

St. Paul's Episcopal Church
425 Cleveland Ave SW
Canton, Ohio 44702
Phone: 330-455-0286
Fax: 330-455-9818
E-mail: office@stpaulscanton.org

Norman Lewis, M.D.

May 14, 1916 – November 17, 2009

I suspect that many of you who are gathered here today were brought into the world by Dr. Norman Lewis. In his long career as an obstetrician, he probably delivered enough babies to populate half of Canton. His estimate was 27,534 babies, but those were just his own patients. He was on-hand for many additional births, so let’s just say, about 30,000. There are 30,000 people in the world whose first glimpse of humanity was Dr. Norman Lewis.

We gather today to honor and remember this gentle and hard-working physician who was so dedicated to his field that he did not retire until he was 87. We celebrate his life, his work, his legacy of love of family, and his presence among us here at St. Paul’s.

In our service today, you will hear much music of Welsh origin. This honors Dr. Lewis’s heritage. His father was from Wales, and his mother from England. They both emigrated to America in the early 20th century, and Norman was born here, the second of their sons. Thus Norman was a first generation American, born in 1916 in Newcastle PA.

Norman graduated from New Castle High School, Geneva College, and Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine. While he was in med school, a chemical engineering student named John was dating a charming young woman named Vera. John talked Norman into meeting Vera’s sister, the lovely Elizabeth. Apparently Norman was smitten, and the feeling was mutual. Elizabeth was a long-distance telephone operator, and she couldn’t get away from her job on Mother’s Day, the busiest telephoning day of the year, so she had to “play sick” to get away to get married. Somewhat ironic, since she was marrying a doctor! Norman and Elizabeth eloped to Parkersburg, W. Va, and were married May 10, 1942. On the drive back to Cleveland, they stopped in Canton and stayed in the Onesto Hotel. The new bride took a photograph from the hotel room which showed the First National Bank building on Tusc and Market Avenues – a building that was eventually the office where Norm was to work as a doctor.

World War II was raging, and Norm could have gotten a deferment, because his eyes were not good, but he wanted to serve his country and signed waivers to go into the army. His first posting was in Okmulgee OK, where he met Dr. Ralph Ramsayer, who told him, “If you survive the war, look me up.” Norman was sent to England to serve in the medical corps. Back home, Elizabeth became a chemical worker in the war effort, a version of Rosie the Riveter. She was pregnant, but since she had no experience with these things and her doctor husband was across the ocean, she didn’t pay much attention on November 9, 1944, when she was apparently in labor. She spent the day shopping in Cleveland, ignoring the discomfort, but eventually was convinced to go to the hospital. Elizabeth gave birth to their first child, Beth, in a taxi cab, at approximately 55th Street and Carnegie. Norman the obstetrician mused on this years later, that it was a little embarrassing to him, an obstetrician, to have his first child born in a taxi. But he didn’t hear about the birth for about two weeks, war-time communications being what they were. Beth was named for her mother, Elizabeth. Their second daughter, Enid, born in 1948, was named for a Welsh princess. And son David, born in 1950, was named for his uncle – David being a very common Welsh name. (St. David is the patron saint of Wales).

At the close of the war, Norman was posted to Wisconsin, doing discharge physicals, then obtained his own discharge, then came to Canton to study with Dr. Ralph Ramsayer in obstetrics. Norman had considered the field of orthopedics, but chose obstetrics instead because of the joy it brought -- most of his patients were happy. According to Beth, her father didn’t mind getting up in the middle of the night to deliver a baby – he was the old-fashioned kind of doctor who was right there, whenever needed. The family sat in the back of the church on Sunday mornings, so that he could hear the phone, in case he was called away. Beth says there are 168 hours in a week, and her father worked 159 of them. He was on-call every day except Thursday from 1 p.m. to 10 p.m. For those nine hours of freedom, Norman and his family left town. The kids were ready every Thursday at 1 p.m. to jump in the car and go somewhere. Says David, “We’ve been to everywhere you could go that was two hours away – every cavern, all the museums and zoos, the Pittsburgh planetarium – anywhere we could go and enjoy some time together, and not run into patients.”

The Lewis family lived in several different homes, moving as the family enlarged. In 1957 Elizabeth designed a home, and their architect neighbor turned her designs into blueprints. The family moved into their exclusively designed home on Croydon in Avondale in 1957 and lived there 15 years, until 1972. It was a large home, which accommodated not only the Lewises and their three children, but also three of their parents. Norman’s parents and Elizabeth’s father all lived in the house on Croydon, and so Beth, Enid and David grew up with three grandparents in the house. Norman felt strongly that he did not want his parents or parents-in-law to go into a nursing facility, and so all three lived with the Lewises until they passed away. The whole family pitched in, caring for them. Beth sometimes called their house “The Lewis Nursing Home.” It is perhaps no surprise that Beth herself became a registered nurse.

In 1973, Elizabeth suffered a devastating stroke and was comatose for ten days. Norman never left her side for those ten days at Mercy Hospital. One of the nuns there, Sister Mercia, sent him special fortified milk shakes to sustain him, since he refused to leave Elizabeth, even to eat. She made a slow recovery and lived 20 more years. But the house on Croydon proved to be too much to handle, and she and Norman moved to a smaller home. Son David had just graduated from college and was planning to go see the world, but changed his mind when he saw his mother’s condition. He remained at home to help, went to school for a teaching certificate, and became a middle school science and math teacher. David continued to live with his father after Elizabeth’s death in 1993. Both David and Beth have been very attentive to their father’s needs for many years. Beth lived in the Florida Key Islands for many years when she was younger, where she met a young baker named Mike Paynter. When her mother started failing in 1990, Beth and husband Mike moved to Canton. They bought a bakery here from a local real estate agent, Richard Dowding, and established their business, naming it the Cake Box Bakery.

When Elizabeth died on December 12, 1993, Norman was devastated. David says, “Though all his patients were women, and he dedicated his life to caring for them, he was deeply devoted to just one woman, our mother.” And so December was always a hard month for Norman ever after, bringing sadness of his loss. So the family planned vacations in December, right after Christmas, to get away and experience some time together, elsewhere. They loved to take him places, any time of year, and their final trip was this past June, when they all went to Hawaii.

Norman was quite active here at St. Paul’s. He was a life-long Episcopalian – remember that his parents were from the British Isles, so it was a natural association. He served on the vestry several times, and loyally attended the 8 o’clock service most of his life. He was fond of the familiar language of the Rite I liturgy, what he heard for so many years, and so our service today is in Rite I, in his honor. The music is Welsh, except for the music during communion, when an Eastern orthodox chant will be sung – that is to honor his wife Elizabeth, whose background was Eastern European. Much of her family was Russian Orthodox by faith.

As David, Beth and I considered the readings for Norman’s service today, the Gospel reading rang true, as Jesus describes himself as the Good Shepherd, the true shepherd who cares about the sheep. David remarked that a significant portion of Canton was his father’s flock. When we read the Old Testament reading, we heard in the language of Lamentations an echo of Norman’s long life: “The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases, his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.” Norman lived a long life of 93 years, active in his practice until six years ago, seeing the miracle of birth nearly every day – new life “every morning.” The following verse in particular seems to describe him: “The Lord is good to those who wait for him, to the soul that seeks him. It is good that one should wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord.” Norman waited patiently to join his beloved Elizabeth, and he died peacefully in his sleep.