Robert Wheeler died March 30, 2013, in Mystic, Conn.
Bob prepared for college at the Taft School. At Princeton he majored in modern languages and was a member of Tower Club.
After graduation he matriculated in the Columbia College of Physicians and Surgeons. He interned at Bellevue Hospital in New York and then served as a Navy medical officer in the Tuberculosis Hospital in Asheville, N.C.
After his discharge from the Navy, Bob trained in pediatrics at Yale Child Study Center, the Children’s Hospital in Chicago, and the Babies Hospital in New York. He then began practicing pediatrics in Greenwich, Conn. He became an enthusiastic sailor, racing his 110 Hypo and then his Shields out of the Indian Harbor Yacht Club.
Twice Bob took time off to participate in charitable activities. In 1962 he reopened the pediatric service in a war-damaged hospital in Béni Messous, Algeria. In 1975 he taught emergency medicine in Java. He also served as a clinical professor of pediatrics at Columbia.
Bob’s marriage to Mary Whitmire ended in divorce. He is survived by his children Susan Foote and Channing Wheeler, five grandchildren, and four great-grandchildren. Two children, Gail Brewster and Martha Wheeler, predeceased him. To all the family, the class sends condolences.