William H. Dobelle - Childhood and Family

Childhood and Family

Dr. William Harvey Dobelle, "Bill", was the son of Martin Dobelle and Lillian Mendelsohn Dobelle, born in Pittsfield, MA on October 24, 1941. William Dobelle's paternal grandparents, Harry and Ida, had immigrated to the United States from Lithuania. His mother Lillian was born the youngest of ten children to the immensely wealthy and politically powerful Mendelsohn family. William's younger brother Evan Dobelle, an American politician and educator, was born in 1945. His father Martin Dobelle, a major orthopedic surgeon whose patients included US astronauts, sparked William Dobelle's original interest and early experience in medicine. At the age of 13 Dobelle designed improvements for the artificial hip for which he received patents. He started college the following year at Vanderbilt. At 15 he won the State of Florida science fair for construction of an original concept x-ray machine. He moved on to win the National Science Fair.

Read more about this topic:  William H. Dobelle

Famous quotes containing the words childhood and, childhood and/or family:

    “... all the cares and anxieties, the trials and disappointments of my whole life, are light, when balanced with my sufferings in childhood and youth from the theological dogmas which I sincerely believed, and the gloom connected with everything associated with the name of religion, the church, the parsonage, the graveyard, and the solemn, tolling bell.”
    —Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1815–1902)

    “Later you hear it wander the dark house
    Like a mother who rises at night to seek a childhood picture;
    Or it goes to the backyard and stands like an old horse cold in the
    pasture.”
    —Robert Penn Warren (1905–1989)

    “When a family is free of abuse and oppression, it can be the place where we share our deepest secrets and stand the most exposed, a place where we learn to feel distinct without being “better,” and sacrifice for others without losing ourselves.”
    —Letty Cottin Pogrebin (20th century)