Obituary: William R. Bailey Jr. / Chief of cardiology at Mercy Hospital
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As Eleanor Bailey was helping to plan funeral services for her father, William R. Bailey Jr., she ran across a saying that immediately made her think of him.
"If I cannot do great things, I can do small things in a great way," it read.
And although her father did do great things -- he served in a field hospital and earned a Bronze Star during World War II, and he performed the first heart catheterization at Mercy Hospital in 1951 -- she also thought of all the small things he had done so well. Taking off work every Thursday afternoon to walk and picnic with his wife and eight children in South Park. Playing kickball and volleyball with them in the yard. Going for long drives in the country on Saturday afternoons with just his wife, and sometimes out for dinner afterward.
"He was the best man I ever knew, he was the greatest man I ever knew," said Ms. Bailey, of Bethel Park. "He was always there and he worked really hard."
Dr. Bailey, of Brentwood, died Thursday. He was 93.
Born Sept. 5, 1918, in Quinton, Va., Dr. Bailey was the son of the late William R. Bailey Sr. and Myrtle Anderson. Growing up in a small Southern town -- Southern roots he was proud of his whole life, his family said -- Dr. Bailey attended a one-room schoolhouse. His Aunt Dessie was the teacher.
Dr. Bailey went on to earn a bachelor's degree from Randolph-Macon College in Ashland, Va., followed by his medical degree in 1942 from the Medical College of Virginia, where he graduated as salutatorian. He then did an internship at Norfolk (Va.) General Hospital.
Drafted during World War II, Dr. Bailey served in the 27th General Hospital's field hospitals in New Guinea and the Philippines, and later in Korea after the war. When it was time to return to the United States, Dr. Bailey's fellow doctors -- nearly all of whom hailed from Western Pennsylvania -- talked him into coming to Pittsburgh, according to his son, James Bailey, of Atlanta.
Most of those doctors ended up working together at Mercy Hospital, where his father specialized in cardiology and served as chief of the cardiology department from 1962 to 1974, ultimately retiring in 1990. During that time, Dr. Bailey was voted "the physicians' physician" at Mercy and served as the local cardiologist on call when presidents, including Gerald Ford, who later wrote him a letter of thanks, visited Pittsburgh, his son said. The hospital's Mullins/Bailey Cardiology Unit was named in his honor.
First Published February 6, 2012 12:00 am
