GLMS Foudation Director Terry Todd and President Dr.
K. Thomas Reichard present Dr. Wolf with a plaque and
reveal that the Walnut Room has been named in his honor.
Right: K. Thomas Reichard, MD, Richard S. Wolf, MD, and
wife Bert, and Lelan Woodmansee, CAE with the plaque.
Wolf ’s honor.
In 1962, Dick opened his own practice, with an inauspicious start.
Dick recalls, “It was lonely the first couple of days. The only person
I met was a plumber who had cut his head. I knew I shouldn’t have
taken an adult, but it was better than doing nothing. I asked if he was
allergic to any medicines, and he assured me he was not. I gave him
some Novocaine and sewed him up. Then he passed out. I asked if
anything like that had ever happened to him before. He said, ‘Yes,
once when a dentist gave me Novocaine. Is that a medicine?’ Charlie
(Charles C.) Smith, MD had been in his internal medicine residency
at the same time as mine in pediatrics, and we had become good
friends. So I sent the plumber to Charlie, and there were no more
problems. Charlie became our personal physician, and during later
visits to his office I had shared that I was helping with The Temple
construction. That was 1975, and Charlie put me on the Old Medical
School restoration steering committee in 1977.”
That marked the start of Dr. Wolf ’s 39 years of uninterrupted service to the GLMS Foundation. Though not a U of L Medical School
grad, no one has shown greater passion for our Old Medical School
building. A member of the OMS Restoration Steering Committee
almost from the start, his tireless efforts allowed our building to
become the advocacy base for Louisville physicians and patients
that it is today. After each demanding day’s work in his pediatric
practice, or later as Medical Director of Kosair Children’s Hospital,
Dr. Wolf would change into dusty work clothes and boots to wade
through the fallen plaster of the OMS with contractors, in effect
serving as uncompensated construction manager.
Earlier the Restoration Committee had decided to divide the
project into three parts: Phase I, a new roof, was done; Phase II,
150 new windows, were installed. Still to begin was Phase III, to
renovate just half of the first floor and relocate the offices of the
Jefferson County Medical Society from Eastern Parkway. Without
Dr. Wolf ’s pragmatic pay-as-you-go method of getting things done,
the dream likely would have run out of money and been abandoned.
Knowing how important it was to accomplish the goal of moving
the Medical Society into the building, Dr. Wolf recalls that “Bob
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LOUISVILLE MEDICINE
(Restoration Committee Chair Robert S. Howell, MD) and I met
with Ferd Effinger of the Schneider Construction Co. to discuss how
to make it happen with the funds we had left, less than $500,000.
Ferd called us two weeks later to say that he would begin work as
soon as the building permits were arranged. When we asked how
much it would cost, he said, ‘The amount you told me that you
had - $450,000,’ and he did it. Overruns for the entire building
project were less that one percent. JCMS moved in on St. Patrick’s
Day, March 17, 1981.”
Dr. Wolf remained committed, negotiating construction contracts
as leases were finalized with the Visiting Nurses’ Assn., Ronald McDonald House, the Society to Prevent Blindness and the growing
Medical Society, until the entire building, including basement, was
renovated, occupied and debt free. In gratitude, the Foundation
relocated the bell from the tower to the second floor and dedicated
it in his honor. In those days of monthly dinner meetings, Medical
Society presidents adjourned each meeting by rapping the bell with
the official gavel.
Inspired by Dean Arthur H. Keeney’s vision of “The Art of Medicine,” Dr. Wolf continued to beautify the building’s interior. He
recognized that many physicians practice the fine arts as creative
outlets, and he persuaded many physicians and their family members
to donate pieces for permanent display in the Old Medical School.
Though some were initially reluctant to relinquish their most prized
works, these physician artists learned, as I had over the years, that
it’s easier just to do what Dick Wolf wants, than to keep telling him
why you haven’t yet done it. The Foundation named the resulting
exhibit the Wolf Art Gallery, and documented its oils, watercolors,
sculpture, photographs, historic artifacts, fabric art and woodcraft
in a full-color catalogue.
Dr. Wolf ’s OMS beautification efforts continued when the Foundation recognized the rental potential for social events and wedding
receptions on the second floor. However, the large meeting room had
four massive steel columns in the center of the room. Each column
consisted of four gray quarter-round segments with large flanges,
connected by rows of huge bolts running floor to ceiling. The room
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