Husband and wife Dr. Charlotte Brown and Dr. David Brown in the library of the New Canaan Inn on Aug. 17. As individuals they have had stellar careers helping people; as a couple they have been a powerful force for public good, benefiting particularly seniors. After 64 years here, they are moving to be closer to family in Rhode Island. — Dave Stewart photo
It’s likely that Drs. David and Charlotte Brown have done more — much more — than any other couple has ever done for this town, and for other people near and far. Now the Drs. Brown are leaving New Canaan, heading to Providence to be closer to their children. The town may not see their likes again.
“An advantage of being a doctor,” says David, “is that you meet all kinds of people all the time. And you always want to make them — and their lives — better.”
Charlotte adds: “I was raised to believe you only live once, and you need to make something of it. I think what attracted us to each other is that we both wanted to do more.”
The community and all who knew them are considered infinitely the better for their having lived and worked here for 64 of their 96 years. Between them they helped create Waveny Care Center, Schoolhouse Apartments, the New Canaan Inn, Visiting Nurse and Hospice of Fairfield County, the Ambulance Corps, Staying Put, the Inter-Church Service Committee, Tele-health and many other organizations.
House calls day and night
They met as Cornell Medical College classmates, moved here as newly minted doctors after David’s Army service was completed, and set up their respective practices, David as an internist and Charlotte as a pediatrician. They saw patients day and night back when doctors made house calls and before there was any ambulance corps.
“Doctors carried their emergency room in their black bags,” says David. “We treated patients in their homes day and night, and in situations where someone absolutely had to be hospitalized, we drove them in our own cars.”
The Browns talked with friends and town leaders about the need for an ambulance, and the funds were subsequently forthcoming from a variety of private sources. And so it has been with countless other organizations: The Browns’ familiarity and friendships with many civic-minded donors have enabled them to bring people together to find solutions to community problems.
So it was when they got together with others to start Waveny Care Center. In addition to civic-minded donors, the Browns gathered a lot of support from local churches through the Inter-Church Service Committee. They particularly credit two former ministers, T. Guthrie Speers, Jr. and Grant Morrill, for their especially enthusiastic backing.
As their children grew, Charlotte left practice to become health director and school physician for both New Canaan and Wilton. Their son Rush used to tell his friends that his mother’s job was “flushing red dye down toilets to see if the red stuff came up in the lawn.”
Fluoridate the water?
In the early 1960s, Charlotte was approached by the president of the New Canaan Water Company about fluoridating the water supply to help prevent cavities in children. She was all for it. But fierce opposition to the plan arose. The “against” people brought in outside “experts” who took to the stage at a crowded hearing to denounce the fluoridation plan as “poisoning the water supply.” It was an epic fight. Eventually a town-wide referendum was held, and the plan went forward.
But Charlotte was worn out — thin and tired — after that battle. Friends gave her and David a trip to a Jamaican luxury resort to recover, but they got bored after a few days and moved to a local plantation where a nearby hospital beckoned.
Adventurous
They have always enjoyed challenges and preferred vacationing where they could also be helpful. Born adventurous, they have traveled the world. Several times when the children were young, the family went to Haiti, where the doctors worked in the Albert Schweitzer Hospital. Later the family ventured to what is now Malawi in West Africa, where the doctors treated young and old alike while their children played with the local children. They took with them many lengths of clothesline so their daughter Isabel could jump rope and give ropes to all her friends. “In African villages, people all help each other,” David notes.
After retiring from the New Canaan Medical Group in 1992, David had more time to devote to building fences and stone walls, carving furniture and bedeviling the woodchucks that invaded his garden.
And they traveled: navigating boats through the canals of France, sailing the Greek Islands, and bicycling in Denmark, Ireland, and France as well as New England. Serving as physicians, they accompanied expeditions to China, Tibet, Antarctica, Alaska and the Sea of Cortez.
The couple has always loved music, art, tennis, canoeing, sailing, figure skating, and dancing. David has downed trees, shaved them into flagpoles, (15 to date), and implanted them around town, the tallest being the 60-foot masterpiece at the Presbyterian Church.
Charlotte volunteered weekly as an associate professor at NYU Medical School for 45 years, and also at the AmeriCares clinic in Norwalk for 10 years. (They needed a desk in that office, so David fashioned one: How typical!)
In a recent salute to the Browns, Barb Achenbaum, executive director of Staying Put, mentioned the pivotal role that the doctors played in its formation. “From the beginning, they offered both their professional experience and their knowledge of how to mobilize the resources of our Town. Their commitment to helping seniors live safely and independently in the community as they age was critical to our success. We will all miss them.”
Over the decades, one of David Brown’s specialties has been writing poems for people’s special occasions. Since their leaving town is a very special occasion, he graciously wrote the sonnet shown with this story.
The post Drs. Charlotte & David Brown leave town appeared first on New Canaan Advertiser.