Russell S. Crawford
Died September 14, 2010
Russell worked during summers between Yale semesters as a brakeman on the Great Northern Railway after preparing for Yale at St. James High School in Grand Forks, ND.
He joined the Air Force after graduating from Yale with an B.A in history in 1966, serving as a pilot during Vietnam and was discharged as a captain.
Russ attended the University of North Dakota on the GI Bill for a year of premed studies, followed by two years of study at its Medical School. Then he transferred to the Baylor College of Medicine (Houston) to complete his medical training in 1977.
While completing an internship in Fresno, CA, he met and married Donna Brannon. His residency was in emergency medicine at Oregon Health Science University in Portland, OR, where Dr. Crawford later practiced in that field for almost 20 years.
The couple then moved to Deer River, MN, where Dr. Crawford was an emergency physician at Fairview University Medical Center – Mesabi until his retirement in 2000.
Following his retirement, Russ enjoyed a decade of fishing, hunting, canoeing in the Boundary Waters and geocaching, a treasure hunting game involving use of GPS technology to hide and seek containers, something at which he excelled.
Russ died at Deer River on September 14, 2010, survived by his wife, Donna.
Richard Kaslow remembers: Great combination of insight and humor.