LIHUE >> Dr. William Walter Goodhue Sr., who practiced medicine on Kauai from 1947 until his retirement in 1978, will be buried tomorrow on Molokai, where his family has lived since the 1840s. Kauai doctor delivered
4,000 babiesWILLIAM GOODHUE SR. / 1913-2001
See also: OBITUARIES
By Anthony Sommer
tsommer@starbulletin.comGoodhue, 88, died on Sunday at his home in Lihue.
Goodhue's great-grandfather Rudolph Meyer emigrated to Hawaii from Germany in the 1840s. He married Kalama Waha, high chiefess of Molokai, and was superintendent of the Hansen's disease (leprosy) settlement at Kalaupapa in the 1860s.
Goodhue grew up in Hawaii and was a graduate of Punahou. He was a member of the University of Hawaii football team. He accompanied his father to Shanghai and attended St. John's University there. He received his medical doctorate at St. Louis University School of Medicine.
Goodhue served as a doctor in the U.S. Navy during World War II and was stationed in the South Pacific and Philippines.
In 1947 he came to Kauai as assistant medical director of Mahelona Hospital, and the following year became medical director at McBryde Sugar Co. He also was a senior partner in the Garden lsland Medical Group in Waimea.
Goodhue once estimated he delivered more than 4,000 babies on Kauai, and by the end of his career, treated grandchildren and great-grandchildren of his original patients. He continued to live on Kauai after his retirement.
Goodhue's wife of 59 years, Rose, died in 1999. They had one son, Dr. William Walter Goodhue Jr., a pathologist who retired in July from the U.S. Army and now is first deputy medical examiner of Honolulu.