Dr. Arthur Antenucci

Antenucci Memorial St. Pauls Chapel January 27, 1988

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On behalf of the family of Dr. Arthur Antenucci, I welcome each of you to this memorial service.

Loving Father, we place ourselves in your presence and ask your blessing upon us. A time of grief, is a time of love, a time of faith, and a time of hope. Our faith in God our father, supports us as we suffer the loss of a loved one. Our hope is strengthened by trust in God, who assures us, that he can and does sustain us. Love for each other reaches a new high as we come together to remember someone we love. And to thank God for the life of Arthur Antenucci.

And so we pray; God our father in these moments of grief, we turn to you for the truth which comes from faith alone, or the courage which comes from hope alone, and for the generosity which comes from love alone. The wisdom for our confusion, the strength for our struggles, and the devotion for our sacrifices lies in you and you alone. We ask you now to deepen in us this faith, hope, and love, even in the midst of our sorrow. Purify us with truth, courage, and generosity, so that our prayer for our brother Arthur, may come to you more pleasing and more powerful. We ask this through Christ, our Lord.

Our first reading this morning, is taken from the book of also commonly entitled the book of the Ecclesiastics. Hold the physician in honor, for he is essential to you. And God it was who established his profession. From God the doctor has his wisdom. His knowledge makes the doctor distinguished and gives him access to those in authority. God makes the earth, yield healing herbs which the prudent man should not neglect. Was not the water sweetened .by a twig, that man might have learned his power? He endows men with the knowledge to glory in his mighty works, through which the doctor eases pain and the druggist prepares his medicines. Thus God's creative work continues without cease, in its on the surface of the earth. And this is the word of the Lord.

Will you now join with me in the recitation of Psalms, The Lord Is My Shepherd, Psalms 23; The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want, in green pastures he gives me repose, besides restful waters he leads me, he refreshes my soul. He guides me in right paths for his namesake, even though I walk in the dark valley, I fear no evil, for you are at my side with your rod and your staff that give me courage. You spread the table before me in the sight of my foes, you anoint my head with oil, my cup over floweth. Only goodness and kindness follow me all the days of my life. And I shall dwell in the house of the Lord for years to come.

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Our first Eulogy this morning will be given by Dr. Walter Wichern who is Director of Surgery at St. Luke's-Roosevelt Hospital Center. As you know he has worked closely with Dr. Antenucci for many years, and the two are very good friends.

And I feel very priviledged to join in this memorial salute to Dr. Arthur J. Antenucci, and I thank you all very much for coming. I extend a thank you on behalf of the family as well. Dr. Antenucci was born in New York. He was educated at City College, where he had an outstanding record. He continued that performance of excellence at-Cox,4444 Medical School, and then had his medical training further at Bellevue Hospital on the Second Cornell Division. He also had a year at the Olga—M44fter—Krankerhaus studying pathology, which was a very profitable year for him, in Vienna, in the Olga—Meinen Kronkenhaus you must know is the Bellevue of Austria. As I look at my fellow eulogists' this morning I'm sure they will recognize the great doctor that Dr. Antenucci was, a great diagnostician, the effective editor of a major medical journal, a remarkable fundraiser, a remarkable officer of the affairs of the hospital, and a remarkable fundraiser. Now I'm going to talk a bit, a little bit more about the Antenucci I remember, the Antenucci he was to me. 1 early remember his desire to support good things, and I thought I was a good thing to support when I was a young house officer, and I had this novel idea at the time and potentially a very, very valuable idea to develop a flame meters to measure the electrolytes in blood and body fluids. I presented this tenuos project to Dr. Antenucci, and he immediately said this is really worthwhile, I'm going to support you to the hilt. And he did, and he made every possible resource available to me. And we lucked out, and had one of the very first flame meters in the country. Many years ago he, with the generosity of patients, he established what is known as the Antenucci fund. The monies were given to the hospital for his disposition. And they almost invariably went to the support of the needy. He was a major fundraiser as you all know and the major supporter of the Antenucci Building and the hospital as well. I remember many fond evenings, Sunday evenings, enjoying the hospitality of the Antenucci home, or going to Enrico's in the village where they would have a table reserved for him, where indeed he got very special treatment. The talk usually was about the hospital, or about medical things, and totally enjoyable from many standpoints. The highlight of many summers was to sail my boat to Shelder Island, leave it for a week at the Antenucci estate, and then come back and pick it up. And during that period Dr. Antenucci was a delightful host. And can you imagine him cooking for our crew? I remember too, his remarkable sport and generous support of a personal charitable project of mine from his donation of Arthur juniors mahogany speedboat, and sunfish, and the girls and woodpussy sailboats. And I shall never forget the remarkable ability he had as a hunter. He was a natural birdshot. I'll bet many of you didn't know that. He could shoot two quail or two pheasants before I could get my gun to my shoulder, and I was an experienced hunter as well. We had remarkable hunts at Millbrook and at plantation, where we enjoyed the real ambience of the old world with horsedrawn shooting wagons, and gillies who took care of the dogs, and wonderful dogs who pointed and held their point, and unforgettable numbers of birds to shoot. Dr. Antenucci, I remembered too, as a devoted and loving and caring husband and father, and he was handicapped somewhat by the enormous time demands on his practice. When I pass by 993 Park Avenue, I think of Dr. Antenucci, as you all do, as the great doctor and a great diagnostician, the effective editor, the remarkable trustee, but I also think of him as a remarkable man and person. A man who has meant so much to me and for whom I thank for so much.

Our second eulogist is John N. Irwin, II a former ambassador to France, is an attorney of council to the law firm of Patterson, Bellnap, Webb & Tyler. He is a retired director of the IBM Corporation, where Dr. Antenucci was the chief medical consultant dating back to the early days of the company, under Thomas J. Watson. T416 doctors have meant so much to their patients, as Arthur J. Antenucci. Nothing of him will fade in the hearts and minds of those whom he counciled. He was rich in family and friends, in his valued nurse Trudy Thiel, in great medical knowledge and experience. The world praised him as one of its greatest diagnosticians, but to his patients he was skilled in whatever they required. He was understanding, a man of human sensitivity, a man who drew people to him through personality and warmth as well as competence. In this day of specialists, he was a generalist, skilled in the specialities. In this day of emphasis of office, he would make housecalls. His patients recognized his preeminence with his peers, his editorship of one of the most prestigious medical periodicals, his position as per among peers. But to them he was their doctor and friend, who was available at his office, at home, on the telephone, for any matter, minor or serious. Often telephone from other parts of the country, or of the world, he would calm his caller, by his confidence, his interest, his specific inquiries as to what had happened, how one felt, how ones body was reacting. Advice and counsel would follow plus, whenever, c warranted, the name of a doctor in the region where the caller was located. -- Often a doctor known to Dr. Antenucci as a former student, or because of a mutual interest in a case or in a problem being researched or studied by the profession. Yes his patients will miss him sorrowly, and will long remember his care and his greatness. Looking to the future, his patients would hope that his successors would seek to emulate him not end the selection of a field of medicine as clearly that as something personal and ability, but rather in his interest in his patients, his patients, his humaness, and his availability.

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Dr. Nicholas Christy was Dr. Antennucci's successor as Chief of Medicine at the Roosevelt. He is now the Chief of Staff at the Veterans Administration Medical Center in Brooklyn, and is a professor of medicine at the State University of New York Health Science Center.

To the friends, and the family of Dr. Arthur J. Antennucci, I extend my thanks also as did Dr. Wichern, for being included among the speakers, an honor which shows one with pride and also with a sense of humbleness. The priest has said that I was Dr. Antennucci's successor, no one ever could have filled those shoes however the way he himself did. I should like to talk with you about only one facet of Dr. Antennucci's infinitely varied and variegated personality and habit of life. I speak of a man who I've come to regard as a geniune hero, so it is not inappropriate to talk in terms of his enormous strengths. Strength however, tempered by a number of softer qualities, mainly concern, almost unrivaled brillance, wisdom, and humor. The concern he has extended in rich measure for all of his patients and to his family over eight decades of superb performance has been amply described by the previous eulogist and I cannot improve upon that, the world is literally filled with patients who owe their lives and their peace of mind to his administrations. His brillance as a diagnostician sometimes consisted in so simple a matter as pulling a -just a little bit farther, so that the essential disorder could actually be seen, something that nobody previously had ever thought to do. This kind of behavior also was in quite different ways, in the really staggering persuasiveness that he could bring to bear in inducing people to come participate in the activities of Roosevelt Hospital, and in the helpful efforts of raising funds, and the imaginative way in which those funds were put to use, which Dr. Antennucci has events in which Mr. Irwin has described. Dr. Antennucci's wisdom and humor I think were inseparable, I don't believe you can be a wise man unless you have a sense of humor, and I don't know how many members of the audience are familiar with the great wells of wisdom and humor which he concealed in his compact body, but they were in fact almost infinite. I have told this story before but its brief, I shall recount it one more time. In my first visit to him, when he became ill in the summer. His face suddenly went very serious and he stared into the middle distance and said, "You know if you're going to get Hodgkin's disease, you might as well be eighty", at which point we both laughed uproariously, breaking the tension and making a sad moment into a richly happy one. I was priviledged to see him only five days before he died, and his entire conversation consisted of two salient things that I wish to remember and to remind you of. One was a very minute concern of my own, very tiny, how he remembered it in its extremity, I will never know. But his conversation was entirely lucid, a bit slow, but totally clear, and the essence of it was that his concern was not for himself but for me. Something I will never forget. Finally, the remainder of his discourse that day consisted only of love, and that is the legacy which chiefly he has left us. One is reminded at this service of the riddle of Samson, concerning the beehive concealed in the body of the lion. Out of his strength, has come forth sweetness.

Our next eulogist E. Virgil Conway is the Chairman, President, and Chief Executive Officer of the Seamen's Bank for Savings. He was a close friend, and a patient of Dr. Antenucci.

Mrs. Antenucci, family, and friends of Arthur Antenucci, Our dear Arthur short and stature, but larger, and taller, and bigger in all of the important and meaningful values of life, and almost all of mankind. His brillance as a doctor has been universally recognized, and is well worth memorializing today. However I am here today, as I suspect many of the rest of you are, to remember a friend, who was for me the very essence of what it is to be a complete human being. Arthur Antenucci was a man who understood the human condition. He dealt with it as a whole as well as its parts, and confronted his fellow man with compassion, concern, understanding, and love. I first met Arthur many years ago in a cold, blustery, snowy farmfield in North Carolina, where we were hunting quail together. We formed a bond of friendship that morning that over the years became one of the richest blessings of my life. Although he became my doctor, he was much much more, a dear friend, a conversationalist, confessor, philosopher, advisor, I can go on and on. Arthur understood more clearly than most that life is a very complicated process. That the human body is not just a mechanical device like a car, in which broken parts can be fixed, but it also must be dealth with as a whole. He would constantly say, "Life is a wide wide road Virgil, one must consider all of the factors and know the significance of each to the other". It is very rare, especially today in this age of specialization that we have a person that can look at the whole, rather than just the pieces. He was the most human individual I have ever known. We can recall his cackling laughter as he greeted you, as you came in, his boundless enthusiam. He was always full of encouragement. He made the very ordinary into the extraordinary. On a routine physical I can still hear him say, what a pressure! after a low blood pressure reading. "Just look at that chart", after his computerized EKG given to him by IBM had official declared your heart to be okay. An early morning visit always involved a chat about my family, my job, his family, his medical journal, and in the last few years, his health, all of this accompanied by a cup of coffee from his devoted and delightful assistant Trudy. Whatever your medical situation, it was always improved by the complete Arthur Antenucci treatment. As Arthur's illness progressed, my visits became more frequent. He became at the end almost frenzied in his desire to share of himself. It is fitting that his life was spent dealing with the mysteries of life and death. He was never the detached scientist. He always loved to be where the action was. Always a participant in life, and never an observer. He even vicariously became a part of the business world, with constant probing questions about how things are going. I miss Arthur Antenucci, because he was a very special friend. There is an ache in my heart as I know there is in yours. Part of my life is gone. At the same time each of us is better in every way by having been touched by this remarkable, magnificent human being. And I know that as John Bunyon said, in Pilgrims Progress, of Christian the leading character, that we can say with assurance of Arthur Antenucci that he passed over and all the trumpets sounded.

DeWitt Peterkin, Jr. was the Chairman of the Board at St. Luke's-Roosevelt when Dr. Antenucci was made a Trustee in 1979. Still a very active Trustee at the Hospital Center, Mr. Peterkin is a retired Vice Chairman of J.P. Morgan & Company. He worked closely with Dr. Antenucci on the Board, and was a long time patient, and good friend.

My remarks are supposed to be the remarks of the Board of Trustees, but that sounds much too formal. I joined the Roosevelt family in the early '70's when I went on the Board. Those were very difficult years for the hospital, in fact they were in dire straits financially. And I went to Arthur and certain of the other senior doctors, and I said, "I'm gonna need all your help." Some of them, as it has already been touched upon, had certain funds that some of their patients had given to the hospital, under their discretion. Some of those funds helped save the hospital! I don't know how to approach Arthur in my relationship because we were friends, I was a patient, and we were fellow Trustees. As a matter of fact, Arthur was the first, with Tom Royster that we ever elected to the Board of Roosevelt, and now they are on the Board of St. Luke's-Roosevelt, and I'm sure that when I came into the office, Trudy didn't quite know what I was going to be talking about, nor did I. There would Arthur stand at the far end of the hall. Hi Pete, we'd go in and chat. One day he took my measurements, and he said you're 6 feet tall. I said, "Arthur thats wrong, I am 6 feet I." He said, "no you're shrinking." I said, "Arthur how can that be?" He said, "look at me." I had no argument then. As a matter of fact, you didn't argue with Arthur, he just sort of persuaded you in his direction. Then after the examination, would immediately turn to the hospital. Next to his family and his patients, that was his abiding interest, one thing that he thought about constantly. How are we gonna make it better? How are we gonna raise all the money that we need? And he was devoted to that end, that we are going to make this one of the best, if not the best hospital of all. Even though this is a gigantic program that we are approaching, $467,000,000. While I talk about money, I might add that just the other day, the funds were finally brought to fruition, to endow a share at Columbia in Arthur's name. So now we have the building, and now we have the share, and many of us have an idea that there are going to be many other things that we are going to do in Arthur's memory. But my thoughts come from the heart as those other speakers did for you too. Arthur was a very rare person to each one of us. I frankly do not know how any one is going to succeed him as my doctor, and that person is going to have very big shoes to follow. But the memory of Arthur will always remain with me, and all of you here have him in your heart as do I. I lift up my eyes toward the mountains, whence shall help come to me? My help is from the lord, who made heaven and earth. May he not suffer yours put to sleep, may he slumber not to guard you. Indeed he neither slumbers, nor sleeps, the guardian of Israel. The Lord is your guardian, the Lord is your shame, he is beside you at your right hand. The sun shall not harm you by day, nor the moon by night. The Lord will guard you from all evil. He will guard your life. The Lord will guard your coming and your going, both now and forever.

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Three words describe a good doctor. The first ability. The second availability. And the third amiability. Those three were personified in Dr. Arthur Antenucci. And so we pray. Almighty and loving father, hear our prayers and be merciful to your son Arthur, whom you have called from this life. Welcome him into the company of your saints and the kingdom of light and peace. You loved him greatly in this life. Now that he is free from all its cares give him happiness and peace in your kingdom, where you live and where there will be no sorrow, no more pain, but only peace and joy. Father of all consolation, in your unending love and mercy for us, you turn the darkness of death into the dawn of new life. You show compassion on your people in their sorrow. Be our refuge and our strength, to lift us up from the darkness of this grief to the peace and light of your presence. Your son, our Lord Jesus Christ, by dieing for us, conquered death, and by rising again, restored life. May we go forward eargerly to meet him. And after our life on earth, be reunited with all our brothers and sisters, we ask this through Christ our Lord. Lord Jesus Christ, you are the great physician of our souls. During your life on earth, you heal the sick. Continue to be the divine physician for your people, and bless the noble work to which you call your doctors and nurses. Make them truly wise in their medical judgements, and genuinely sympathetic in their dealings with their patients. Inspire them with professionalism and words of comfort to those who suffer. Encourage them in the trials to which they are exposed. Grant them power and influence for good. Let nothing deter them from the compassionate performance of their sacred duty. Enable them to cure the ills of body and spirit, that afflict so many in our day. May the Lord bless you, and keep you. Lord let his face shine upon you and be gracious to you. The Lord look upon you kindly and give you peace. Amen. Before our closing hymm, God Has Spoken By His Prophets, I wish to express thanks on behalf of the family of Dr. Antennucci, and the Roosevelt, St. Luke's Hospital family, for your attendance this morning. May I also remind you that the reception immediately following the service, will be in the Winston Conference Room at St. Luke's-Roosevelt Center. As you know it's right across the street, and we suggest that you enter into the hospital on the Ninth Avenue entrance. We ask you now to join together in the Ode To Joy, the words of which you will find on the rear part of the program.