With tears of sorrow Tuesday, Dr. Leslie Dubowitz described his longtime friend, noted cardiologist Dr. Norman M. Wall, who died Sept. 3.
"To me, he was a mentor, a friend, a father figure. There was no physician like Dr. Wall. There will never be a physician like Dr. Wall. He was one of a kind. He's a legend. I certainly will miss him," Dubowitz, 70, of Pottsville, said before a crowd of more than 100 at the Norman M. Wall, M.D. Auditorium at Schuylkill Medical Center-East Norwegian Street.
The crowd gathered Tuesday for a community memorial service for Wall, who died at the age of 99 at his home in Heathrow, Fla. He was interred Tuesday morning at Kehillath Israel Cemetery in Shenandoah Heights, according to Mark I. Pinsky, Orlando, Fla., a journalist, author and a friend of Wall's.
Wall was a Girardville native who became known for his work as a cardiologist in Pottsville.
While more than 100 people filled the auditorium, another 75 watched it through a live video link to a 52-inch TV under a canopy at the hospital's East Arch Street entrance, according to M. Michael Peckman, a spokesman for Schuylkill Health, Pottsville.
Born in Girardville, Feb. 9, 1914, Wall was the son of Russian immigrants who operated a dry goods store. Wall attended the University of Pennsylvania and its medical school on a scholarship in the 1930s and later trained at the Leahy Clinic in Boston and Montefiore Medical Center in Pittsburgh, according to Pinsky.
Wall came to work at the former Good Samaritan Regional Medical Center, Pottsville, in 1950. He eventually became the hospital's chief of staff, chief of medicine and cardiology and director of medical education.
"I'm a Jew but I ran that Catholic hospital when they rebuilt it, and it became the top place in the whole area. It was a much better medical center than any of them around there. Not a bad run," Wall said in an April interview with The Republican-Herald.
At the memorial Tuesday were members of his family, including his wife, Faye, and his three children, Jay, 68, Harry, 64, and Sharon, 55.
"When I moved to Florida about 14 years ago, I got to see him more often, and he was always interested in my opinion of Israel, politics, religion and health care, in this order," said his oldest granddaughter, Tamar Richardson, 38.
"Saba, I really don't believe I will ever know anyone quite like you. 'Saba' means grandfather in Hebrew. You have made such an impact on this world and on my world. Saba, we love you and will miss you very much. I promise you will live through us and our children forever," Richardson said.
The master of ceremonies was Franklin K. Schoeneman, vice chairman of the Schuylkill Health board of directors.
Speakers included Pinsky; Dr. Ron Waksman, one of Wall's former students and associate director at the Division of Cardiology at MedStar Washington; Pottsville Mayor John D.W. Reiley; Rabbi Steven W. Engle of the Congregation of Reform Judaism, Orlando, Fla.; and Arnold Delin, Orwigsburg, past president of Oheb Zedeck Synagogue Center, Pottsville, and his wife, Delores.
In his speech, Engle thanked Schuylkill County.
"This is where Norman began his life and his career. This is where he raised his family. This is where he learned the trade of medicine. This is where Norman really came from. We in Central Florida and Orlando benefitted from your support and from raising Norman in your community. You should be really proud as a community to raise a person of the caliber of Norman Wall. The values that he expressed with medicine came from here," Engle said.
Wall moved to Florida more than two decades ago.
"Norman never gave up the practice of medicine. He would read the latest journals I would often see stacked up on his dining room table," Pinsky said.
"Until he died, Norman read The New York Times daily and watched 'The Daily Show' nightly. He was Web savvy. He inhaled books, mostly nonfiction and history. If there was another woman in his life, it was the librarian at the local library where he was a patron," Engle said.
Just days after Wall died, Pinsky noticed library books at Wall's home, "two of Rick Atkinson's histories of World War II, recommendations from Harry."
"When I asked him how he could read two or three books a week, he said he was making up for lost time," Pinsky said. "His practice left him little time to read beyond journals. His heroes, unsurprisingly, were the medieval physician and philosopher Maimonides and Albert Einstein."
Peckman screened a recent video interview with Wall. In it, Wall said he didn't like when people used the expression "killing time."
"I don't have enough time. That's why I'm so eager to do things," Wall said.
"We, his children, were so proud to have him as our father. That we had him for so long, and in such good shape in mind and body until his last day, was very fortunate. But it doesn't diminish the pain of our sudden loss. After all, at 99, he was still planning things, from the Jewish New Year to the next books he would read to the next luncheon seminars he would organize," Harry Wall said.
"He had a busier social life than I ever had," Richardson said.