Paul Arthur Milde died on June 19, 2020 at the age of 88. The son of Walter J. and Gertrude T. Milde, Paul grew up in Cleveland as the oldest of three boys. Possessed with a keen intellect and wide-ranging curiosity, he excelled academically at Harvard College (’53) and Harvard Medical School (’57), but also found time during his schooling to spend two summers in the arctic working for the Weather Bureau, tour Europe as a driver and caregiver for a young man disabled by polio, play his viola in the Harvard-Radcliffe Orchestra and elsewhere, climb with the Harvard Mountaineering Club, and travel the country with his diverse group of friends.
After graduating from medical school, Paul joined the U.S. Navy and served in Japan and California before leaving active service as a Lieutenant. He went on to complete his surgical residency at Stanford University. While there, he discovered his favorite city, San Francisco, where he became a frequent guest on the houseboat in Sausalito shared by the artist Jean Varda and the writer Alan Watts. Although he was often a quiet presence, described as a “gentle giant” by his school friends and a “sweet boy” by Jean Varda, Paul became part of some of the city’s intellectual, artistic, and musical social circles that flourished during the 1960s. When not working at the hospital or socializing with the city’s artists and writers, Paul could be found attending concerts and lectures, hiking, or sailing a small boat in San Francisco Bay.
Following his residency, Paul traveled abroad before joining the Volunteer Physicians for Vietnam program in 1968. He arrived at the 120-bed civilian hospital in Xuan Loc during the Tet Offensive, and spent several months there treating everything from traumatic war injuries to childhood illnesses, sometimes as the hospital’s only physician. In a report describing his time in Xuan Loc, Paul noted the shift that the program engendered in the local population’s perspectives on medicine and surgery, writing that, by the time he and several other American physicians departed, they were known as “the surgeons who do not kill.”
Paul traveled extensively on his way back from Vietnam, but cut his exploration short to accept a fellowship at the Massachusetts General Hospital. Thereafter, he practiced surgery and emergency medicine in the Boston area until medical issues related to an old mountain climbing injury pressed him into an early retirement.
During and after his surgical career, Paul was very involved in New England’s international music scene, and he could often be found welcoming newcomers into the Scottish Fiddle Club or Roaring Jelly (a folk orchestra), where he was a fixture and a perennial source of encouragement for novices. He met his wife, Melanie, while playing his fiddle at a folk dance in 1980, and they were married five years later.
Together, they had a son, Christian, who Paul doted on. Paul was a loving husband and father who saw the potential in everyone around him yet humbly downplayed his own achievements. He encouraged Melanie to found a professional Scandinavian music ensemble and supported his family and friends in all their dreams and endeavors, applauding their accomplishments and often saying “I could never do that!” with earnest amazement.
A man of extraordinary patience, empathy, warmth, and humor, Paul saw the best in everyone and viewed bringing others together as a serious responsibility. He was the de facto patriarch of the extended Milde family, and the house he shared with Melanie and Christian was often host to family gatherings, folk orchestra rehearsals, and meetings of informal language and literature classes led by friends.
Paul often said that his education began when he finished his schooling, and he imparted his curiosity and love of learning to his family. He was a voracious reader with a passion for languages, and he almost always had a foreign language dictionary within reach, although the language varied. His genuine excitement for new knowledge made him a talented teacher, although he never thought of himself as such, and he taught others almost unknowingly as he sought to learn from them. Conversations with him were particularly memorable because of his sense of humor, although his wry, deadpan jokes and sly smile could easily go unnoticed, hidden among his steady stream of multilingual wordplay and puns.
Paul was also a gifted writer and poet, whose command of language and literature sometimes surprised those who knew him only as a surgeon, a traveler, a mountaineer, or a musician. Although gregarious among friends, his humility was such that his breadth and depth sometimes surprised even those who knew him well. Often, he would listen quietly to others, revealing his own relevant experiences only when coaxed by family who might interject with “you know, Doctor, Paul was a surgeon,” or “Paul, didn’t you climb the Matterhorn?” He would smile and shrug, disclaiming his expertise with a disarming “that was a long time ago,” or “only once.”
Predeceased by his brothers, Lyall and Gordon, Paul is survived by his wife, Melanie; his son, Christian; his nephews and niece, Paul, Robert, and Susan; and many other members of his extended family.
Service details will be forthcoming.
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