Robert Aldrich, Well-Known Pediatrician, Original Thinker
Seattle pediatrician Robert Aldrich, who wrote the book "Grandparenting in the '90s" and helped former Seattle Mayor Charles Royer launch the KidsPlace plan for a family-friendly city, thought globally and acted locally long before it became a cliche.
He developed his ideas from working with children and teaching physicians to work with children.
But he also built on the ideas of his father, pediatrician C. Anderson Aldrich, whose book "Babies Are Human Beings" helped change Victorian attitudes about children.
In government work and at international symposia in the 1960s with physician Jonas Salk, anthropologist Margaret Mead, futurist Buckminster Fuller and others, Dr. Aldrich advocated the then-revolutionary concept that cities be designed for a variety of people.
"He said (to city leaders and to fellow physicians), `You're making a big mistake by treating everyone as a 170-pound human male,' " said Dr. Aldrich's son, Andy Aldrich of Seattle. "He said there's so much more variety than that."
Dr. Aldrich died Wednesday (Sept. 16) of heart problems associated with diabetes. He was 80.
Born in Evanston, Ill., he earned a bachelor of science degree at Amherst College in 1939 and an M.D. at Northwestern University in 1943. He served in the Navy during World War II, then finished his pediatric training at the University of Minnesota and the Mayo Clinic.
He taught pediatrics at the University of Oregon, then in 1956
moved to Seattle to chair the University of Washington Medical School's department of pediatrics.
In 1962, during the Kennedy administration, he was asked to found and staff a new National Institute of Health - the Institute of Child Health and Human Development in Bethesda, Md.
He returned to the UW Medical School in 1964 to head the Division of Health Resources.
"He was considered an original thinker and put forward many new ideas at the UW," said his son, who cherishes the stimulating, dinner-table talks he had with his father.
Dr. Aldrich chaired the faculty senate during the student uprisings of the late 1960s.
From 1970 to 1980 he served as vice president for health affairs at the University of Colorado. He returned to the UW in 1980 to work in the Graduate School of Public Affairs. He developed a course in human ecology, showing that human health issues are often related to culture.
Active in many children's advocacy groups, he is best known for founding the KidsPlace organization. Dedicated to making cities attractive for children, the group has been emulated in cities worldwide.
An avid camper and steelhead fisher, "Robert Aldrich always felt the highest accomplishment anyone could make was rearing a family," said his son.
Other survivors include his wife of 58 years, Marjorie Aldrich of Seattle; his sons Steve Aldrich, M.D., of Burlington, Skagit County; and Frederick Aldrich of Grand Junction, Colo.; his sister, Cynthia Rowe of Northbrook, Ill.; his brother Stephen Aldrich, M.D., of Black Mountain, N.C.; and eight grandchildren.
Services are at 11 a.m. today at Acacia Funeral Home, 14951 Bothell Way N.E., Seattle.
Remembrances may go to the Aldrich Professorship, Department of Pediatrics, University of Washington School of Medicine, 1959 N.E. Pacific St., Seattle, WA 98195.
Carole Beers' phone message number is 206-464-2391. Her e-mail address is: cbeers@seattletimes.com