Dr. James Leary, Dead At 90, Saw Medicine `Almost As A Ministry'

It was 1943 when James Patrick Leary set up his private practice in the Hillman City neighborhood of southeast Seattle.

Medicine was different in those days. Dr. Leary made house calls and delivered babies. He spent time with patients, explaining his procedures and diagraming their ailments on the paper covering the examining table.

But above all, he treated patients with a quiet dignity learned from the strong Irish women who raised him.

"The main thing I remember was his incredible integrity," said his daughter Martha St. John of Seattle. "He treated people with respect."

Dr. Leary died Oct. 24 of congestive heart failure. He was 90.

His father, a copper miner, died before Dr. Leary was born Nov. 30, 1908. He was the youngest of four children raised by his mother, grandmother and aunt.

His family put Dr. Leary through Catholic schools. As a child, he developed back trouble and lived with relatives in San Francisco to receive treatment. His surgeries sparked an interest to one day become a physician himself.

He graduated from St. Ignatius High School in San Francisco in 1927 and met his undergraduate requirements at Mount Saint Charles College in Helena, Mont., three years later. In 1934, he received a medical degree from Loyola University in Chicago.

Dr. Leary was so short of cash during his medical studies that he hopped freight trains when he visited his family in Montana, St. John said.

After meeting his wife, Mildred Stover, during a residency in West Virginia, Dr. Leary accepted a job at Northern State Hospital in Sedro-Woolley. He began working as a staff physician at the mental hospital in 1940.

Three years later, he opened his practice in Seattle, just south of Columbia City.

They were busy times, St. John recalled.

"He always took us to church on Sunday, and we always had Sunday breakfast together, unless he was delivering babies," she said.

A nephew, Dan Conroy of Tacoma, said his uncle's dedication influenced his own career choice.

"It was clear that Jim was in medicine almost as a ministry. He was a very committed Christian and a committed doctor," Conroy said.

For pleasure, Dr. Leary enjoyed casting a fishing line into the waters of Puget Sound and renting boats to explore the San Juan Islands.

His wife and his daughter Maureen Leary Brown preceded him in death.

Also surviving are his son Michael Leary of Des Moines; daughters Cecilia Ingram of Bellevue and Karen Stratton of Beaverton, Ore.; sister Cecilia Conroy of Sherwood, Ore; nine grandchildren, and five great-grandchildren.

Funeral services were held yesterday. Remembrances may be made to one of Dr. Leary's longtime charities, the St. Joseph's Indian School, Chamberlain, S.D.