Robert Darter

Dr. Darter is survived by his wife, Jan; sons, Michael and wife Heidi, Jim and wife Stacy, John and wife Kelly; daughter, Kimberly and husband Tony; and grandsons, Zac, Sage, Quinn, Kai and Cody. His son, Robert, predeceased him in 2010.

Born in 1933 in Berkeley, Calif., he was raised there and settled in St. Helena in 1961.

Dr. Darter was a man of enormous accomplishments and generosity. He graduated in 1954 with his bachelor’s degree in public health, with honors, from the University of California, Berkeley. He received both his master’s in microbiology and his medical degree from Northwestern University in Chicago in 1958. He went on to intern at Alameda County’s Highland Hospital, and then work for the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta. In 1970, he and partners Dr. George Wood and Dr. Charles Queary formed what is now the Napa Valley Family Medical Group in St. Helena. In 1976, he became president of the Napa County Medical Society and dedicated many years to serving on the governing board of St. Helena Hospital. In 2011, Dr. Darter was honored with the California Medical Association’s Frederick K.M. Plessner Award, which honors a California physician who best exemplifies the ethics and practice of a rural physician. The Medical Association called Dr. Darter “one of our unheralded heroes” in giving him the award.

At a very young age, Dr. Darter would accompany his microbiologist mother, L. Amy Wells Darter, to her laboratory in UC Berkeley’s Life Sciences Building. “I knew when I was 4 years old that I wanted to be a doctor,” Dr. Darter has explained. “My mother talked with me about the infectious diseases she worked with and it fascinated me, so I’d go down to her lab and she’d show me things. I decided that’s what I wanted to do.”

Until Monday, Oct. 1, he had been practicing family medicine in St. Helena for 51 years; he was also affiliated with St. Helena Hospital. At one point in his career, he jokingly claimed to have delivered nearly half the babies born at St. Helena Hospital (with his wife Jan, a registered nurse, who often assisted), adding that his partner, Dr. Wood, had delivered the other half.

One of Dr. Darter’s great passions was football, especially as played by the California Golden Bears. Since moving to St. Helena, he had not missed a home game, and in fact, his tickets were second-generation from his parents, with whom he attended games while growing up in Berkeley. He attended his last game on Sept. 29.

As part of his love for football, he volunteered as the sideline team physician for the St. Helena High School Saints, beginning in 1962, and for the Carpy Gang football teams since 1970. Some of this sideline tenure included watching his sons play, and recently cheering on his grandson Sage running the ball for the Saints JV team. On May 10, 2012, the Saints Athletic Association honored Dr. Darter for his 50 years of service as the sideline doctor for both St. Helena High and Carpy Gang football games. Dr. Darter also regularly gave required physicals to student athletes at reduced cost, allowing more athletes to participate in sports.

On Sept. 15, 2005, Rep. Mike Thompson read a proclamation on the floor of the U.S. Congress on the occasion of Dr. Darter’s 40 years of service on the St. Helena Library board of trustees. For 29 years, Dr. Darter served as chairman of the board, during which time he helped with many landmark developments, from obtaining the group’s charitable status to building expansions in 1979 and 1999.

Dr. Darter was a very active member of the St. Helena Kiwanis Club, serving as president, treasurer and secretary in his over four decades of involvement, as well as the district’s lieutenant governor and chairman of numerous district committees. He had fond memories of participating in the annual fundraiser, the Kiwanis Kapades, for which he served as dancing master for the chorus line.

One of Dr. Darter’s greatest commitments was to the Boy Scouts. As a young man, he fell in love with the outdoors on family camping trips to the Yolla Bolly wilderness; this passion continued throughout his life. Wishing he had been more active in Scouts as a boy, he served as Assistant Scoutmaster in St. Helena from 1962 until 1982. He was pivotal in planning and leading the annual 50-mile backpack trips throughout the High Sierras and covering the entire John Muir Trail. He also served on many local and regional Scout committees and, importantly, as the committee chair for St. Helena’s Troop 1, beginning in 1982. In recognition of his contribution to Scouting, he received the Award of Merit, the Scouters Training Award and the Silver Beaver Award — the Boy Scouts’ highest award given to adult leaders.

One of “Doc’s” many roles in the life of Troop 1 was creating and continuing the annual Snow Camp, held near Silver Lake in the Sierras. Doc himself drove his trackster in to supply the camp and was a key leader supervising the building of snow caves and skiing and climbing of Thunder Mountain.

For his many community endeavors, Dr. Darter was the first-ever recipient of the St. Helena Chamber of Commerce’s Lifetime Achievement Award in 2006.

Dr. Darter enjoyed taking his family on ambitious, far-flung adventures around the globe, starting with Everest in 1979. He chose the challenge of viewing the world’s 14 8,000-meter peaks with his family (no small feat), making it to 11 of them. He made numerous other trips abroad, saying he liked to travel where most others did not. This included Nepal, Kashmir, Ladakh and Assam in India, the Silk Road, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan, Patagonia in Peru and more. He once tried to buy a camel on credit card to bring home to the grandsons. A big hotel on the beach was not his idea of fun and he never thought he would be old enough to play golf. With this in mind, he stayed 39 for decades.

Funeral arrangements are private. A community celebration of Dr. Darter’s life is being planned, with the date to be announced at a later time. Donations can be made to Boy Scouts, Saints Athletic Association, St. Helena Library Foundation, and St. Helena Kiwanis Club Foundation.