David Alan Sears

He was born and raised in Portland, Oregon, the youngest of four children of Harry and Huldah Sears. School took him across country to Yale for undergraduate studies, overseas to Germany on a Fulbright scholarship, and then back home to Portland for medical school, where he graduated with honors in 1958.

There, he met and married his wife, Yvonne, and they moved back across country for his residency in internal medicine and fellowship in hematology at the University of Rochester in upstate New York. His career then took him from a research post at Walter Reed in Washington, D.C., to faculty positions at Rochester, San Antonio, and finally, Baylor College of Medicine in Houston. He retired as professor emeritus in 2002.

The consummate academic physician, he was a lifelong researcher with a special interest in sickle cell disease, a tireless educator leading the medicine residency at Ben Taub Hospital, and devoted clinician rounding on the medicine and hematology services for years and attending the hematology clinic even after his retirement. He has authored dozens of articles in professional journals and chapters in textbooks.

Beyond medicine, David would tell you that he was a jogger before jogging was cool. With wife Yvonne, he was an avid opera and theater attendee. He was an active Yale alumnus, leading their alumni program in San Antonio and Houston for many years. Stemming from his varsity basketball play at Yale, he was loyal fan of the San Antonio Spurs, Houston Rockets and Rice Owls with season tickets for over four decades.

David was a devoted father to his three children and doting grandfather to his nine grandchildren. He was not too secretly proud that one son and two granddaughters have gone on to join him as Yale alumni.

His and Yvonne’s most decadent pleasure was their beloved beach house on South Padre Island, where they relaxed with their children in the summers, entertained extended family and friends through the years and enjoyed semi-resident status in retirement.

David is preceded in death by his parents; his three older siblings, Elizabeth Hall of Pineville, North Carolina, Tom Sears of Milwaukie, Oregon, and Joan McGilvray of Ridgewood, New Jersey; and his loving wife of 57 years, Yvonne Bowles Sears. He is survived by his three children, Geoffrey Sears and his wife Janice, Cameron Sears and his wife Nancy Duckles, and Andrea Sears Andrews and her husband Jaye. He is also survived by his nine grandchildren ranging in age from 20 to 28.

Due to current restrictions, no public services will be held.

In lieu of customary remembrances, the family requests with gratitude that memorial contributions in his name be directed to the Harry and Huldah Sears Microbiology Fellowship Endowment at the University of Oregon at OHSU Foundation, P.O. Box 29017, Portland, OR 97296 (support.ohsufoundation.org/SOMV20LS); or to the David and Yvonne Sears Endowed Fund for Physician Training at Baylor College of Medicine (www.givebmf.org/sears).