William Alexander Meriwether

William Alexander Meriwether was just three years shy of his centennial birthday when he died suddenly of heart failure on Memorial Day, May 25, 2020. Up until his death, he was still living in his San Antonio home, enjoying the daily New York Times crossword puzzle, playing bridge, and corresponding vigorously via email with extended family, friends, former colleagues and fellow genealogists. His beloved wife, Candida de Carvalho Meriwether, predeceased him in 2013 after 58 years of marriage.

He was born in his family home, Cloverlands, on March 5, 1923, on a 275 acre tobacco farm in Montgomery County, Tennessee, to Henry Tutwiler Meriwether and Elizabeth Clyde Whitmire Meriwether. He graduated as class valedictorian from Centre College in Danville, Kentucky in 1943 and received his medical degree from the University of Tennessee School of Medicine in Memphis in 1946.

In 1951, after completing his residency training, young Dr. Meriwether embarked on a long and eventful career as a military pathologist, serving in the Panama Canal Zone, Puerto Rico, and Tokyo, where he met and married Candida, followed by assignments in Korea, San Francisco, San Antonio, and Landstuhl, Germany. He loved to teach and looked back with pride at his work in the 1950s at the Severance Union Medical College, a former missionary institution now part of Yonsei University, South Korea, helping train future physicians in a country ravaged by war. His final position before retiring from the military with the rank of colonel in 1975 was chief of the laboratory at Madigan Army Medical Center in Fort Lewis, Washington, where he also directed and expanded the pathology residency training program and became the first military pathologist to become board-certified in the specialty field of dermatopathology.

His commitment to medical education carried him to San Antonio, where he joined the faculty of the University of Texas Health Science Center as an assistant professor in the department of pathology and director of surgical pathology, teaching medical students and pathology residents. Beloved mentor of many, Dr. Meriwether finished his professional career as a member of the medical staff of the Methodist Hospital in San Antonio. He was a past president of the San Antonio Society of Pathologists, a fellow of the American College of Pathologists and the American Society for Clinical Pathologists, and a member of the American Medical Association.

Dr. Meriwether was proud of his family connection to Capt. Meriwether Lewis, co-leader of the Lewis and Clark Expedition. He was a repository of 200 years of family history and a founding member and President Emeritus of the Meriwether Society. Active in retirement, he enjoyed travels with Candida in Mexico, Africa, Australia, Polynesia, China, Europe and the Galapagos Islands, and devoted a lot of time to his large garden, obtaining tasty yields of corn and tomatoes. He and Candida were happily involved grandparents and enjoyed hosting and attending large family gatherings. He had a quiet, dry sense of humor and loved a good practical joke. Until March of this year, he participated daily in the Lion’s Field morning exercise class for over two decades, which provided not only the benefits of physical activity but treasured friendships. An ardent tennis fan, he patiently taught all six of his children how to play the game, delighting in many years of multigenerational social tennis with friends and family. He enjoyed playing doubles well into his 80s. This love of tennis originated in his youth, when he and his only brother Henry T. Meriwether whiled away many hours on the farm playing on a court they created in a pasture, fenced to keep out livestock, wielding old racquets they had found and restrung with copper wire. A voracious reader, he had an alert and inquiring mind, and embraced the computer as a miraculous means of communication and staying well informed. He maintained his medical licensure by participating in the required continuing medical education activities, many of which were online, until his death. After receiving many honors during his lifetime, including the Legion of Merit from the Army, perhaps one of the most appreciated was to be recognized by his alma mater, Centre College, as a Distinguished Alumnus in 2017, an award for which he delivered his acceptance speech in person at the age of 94.

He is survived by his six children and their families, which include thirteen grandchildren: David and his wife Kathleen, Anna-Maria and her husband Jim Phelps, Michael and his wife Suzy, John and his wife Jan, Susanna and her husband Brent McClure, and Julia and her husband Patrick Kennerly. The family is more grateful than can ever be fully expressed to Susanna and her family, who made it possible for him to live out his days in his own home, and to his caregiver, Katie Galvez.

Interment at the Fort Sam Houston Military Cemetery and a memorial celebration will take place on a date yet to be determined. In lieu of flowers, memorials can be made in his honor to Centre College at gifts.centre.edu or Centre College, 600 W. Walnut St., Danville, KY 40422, or to the San Antonio Food Bank at safoodbank.org or San Antonio Food Bank, 5200 Enrique M. Barrera Pkwy, San Antonio, TX 78227.