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.

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