Doctor delivered thousands of babies in Bradenton. And he worked in a jungle clinic, too
Dr. Joseph F. P. Newhall Jr., who left a successful Bradenton medical practice in 1963 with his wife, Sue, and three young children, to practice medicine in the jungles of northern Burma, has died at age 92.
Newhall went to Burma, now called Myanmar, to assist the legendary Dr. Gordon Seagrave, who had been caring for patients in his remote hospital since 1915, except for during World War II, when he was chased out by the invading Japanese army.
A few months after the Newhall family arrived in Burma, the military government began trying to deport them, saying they had overstayed their visitors visas. The Newhalls were able to stay in Burma, however, until 1965, when they returned to Bradenton.
“Obstetrics training didn’t include some of the things we had to do, like cataracts, cleft palates, thyroids,” Newhall said in a 2008 interview with the Bradenton Herald. “Many times I stood at the operating table with a nurse holding up a picture — a how-to-do it map. If I didn’t do it, it didn’t get done.”
After being expelled from Burma, the family returned to Bradenton and Dr. Newhall resumed his medical practice, helping to bring thousands of babies into the world before retiring from Manatee OB/GYN in 1997.
After the family returned to Bradenton, Dr. Newhall’s wife, Sue, enrolled in a creative writing course. She turned her student writings into a book titled “The Devil in God’s Old Man,” which was published by W.W. Norton & Co. in 1969.
“I do not believe in ghosts, but sometimes I wish I did,” she writes in the epilogue of her book about Dr. Seagrave, who died in 1965. “During the 68 years that he lived in the body of Gordon S. Seagrave, he was never quiet or at peace with himself or the world.”
Elva Sue Mayes Newhall, a hematology laboratory technologist, who married Joe Newhall in 1955, died in 2017 at age 90.
Dr. Newhall was born on March 16, 1928, in Grand Rapids Mich.. In 1945, on his 17th birthday, he joined the Navy and served two years at Great Lakes Naval Air Station. After his naval service, he enrolled in Wake Forest University, graduating in three years, and then attended Tulane Medical School in New Orleans, graduating in 1955. It was there that he met Sue. After finishing his OB/GYN residency at Tulane they moved to Bradenton in 1959 where he joined Simkus & Southerland OB/GYN.
Dr. Newhall was active member of Bradenton Rotary Club for four decade. He and Sue were honored with the Paul Harris Fellow Award for their public service. They were longstanding active members of Westminster Presbyterian Church and outdoor enthusiasts who enjoyed cycling, camping, hiking, scuba diving, and running. Dr. Newhall completed marathons into his 60.
Dr. Newhall is survived by sons, Tim of Tallahassee, Phil of Fort Myers, John of New Port Richey, James, Paul, and Judson of Bradenton, a niece August Murray of Howey In the Hills, Fla., and 10 grandchildren and one great-grandchild.
A private grave site service is planned at the Sarasota National Cemetery. The family requests that in lieu of flowers, donations in his memory be made to Manatee County Humane Society or the Davis Phinney Foundation for Parkinson’s. Arrangements are by Griffith-Cline Funeral and Cremation Service.
