House, Homer C. MD

Dr. Homer C. House, orthopaedic surgeon and US Army Colonel, Ret.

Dr. Homer C. House, an orthopaedist specializing in surgery of the hand, died April 18th, 2017 at his home in Sherwood Forest, Maryland. He was 79.

Homer Charles House was born in Washington D.C. .June 6th, 1937 to Hugh Osgood House, MD and Gladys Sue Westmoreland, R.N. His mother passed in 1940, and he was raised by his stepmother, Mary Aiello House.

“Homer” soon became known as “Butch”, a nickname much better suited to his personality. He grew up in Washington D.C. and attended Woodrow Wilson High School where he first began to wrestle. His love for wrestling never ended. Butch continued to wrestle while at Washington & Lee University and while in the army, and he loved to attend local high school wrestling tournaments.

While at W&L, Butch met Susan Smith from Hollins University and they married in Baltimore after Susan’s graduation in June 1961. Butch had graduated from W&L in 1959 and completed his medical school education at George Washington University in 1964.

He was drafted into the US Army in 1965 during his surgical internship at the Cleveland Clinic. He traveled to Fort Bragg, joined the Green Berets, and completed parachute training at Fort Benning. He served in Vietnam from 1966-1967 as a surgeon in a field unit, and stayed past the end of his required tour in Vietnam to see to completion a field hospital he had founded and was proud of. He earned the Bronze Star. Butch retired after 20 years completing his service in the Army reserves but came out of retirement in 1991 and returned to Fort Benning to serve during the First Persian Gulf war.

After returning from Vietnam, Butch returned to the Cleveland Clinic for his surgical residency. His medical training took him to Walter Reed Hospital for an orthopaedic specialty, and to Louisville, KY for the Christine Kleinert Hand Surgery Fellowship. He entered private practice and moved to Baltimore’s Ruxton Ridge neighborhood with Susan, daughters Beth and Eryn, and son Ti.

Doctor House practiced medicine for 50 years with the accompanying list of professional societies, papers and publications and other honors and awards. His practice took him to the Saint Agnes Hospital, the James Lawrence Kernan Hospital, and the Mercy Medical Center. Butch also had a remarkable bed side manner and his patients loved him. Members of his office have remarked that he treated them as if they were family. He was unfailingly generous of his time and money, and volunteered regularly at a clinic to provide medical services to those not able to pay.

Friends have commented that Butch was fun. He was always suggesting something fun to do, and being with Butch and his idiosyncrasies made the experiences memorable:

He was a natty dresser who favored pocket squares, but carried enough instruments in his socks to furnish a field hospital.

He was funny, and told jokes, lots of jokes, some very funny, and some very bad. Some painfully long.

He loved music and played the guitar. He wrote songs including a fight song for the new Baltimore Ravens football team. Too bad the Ravens did not adopt it. It was great.

He played guitar at Sherwood Forest social events with other local musicians. He said he could play anything as long as it was in the key of C. “If you leave the key of C, you leave me” he quipped.

He insisted on cheese with his apple pie, and peas with honey, always ritualized at family dinners with the attending rhymes explaining why.

He was a lifelong golfer who loved all things golf. He loved most sports, ran marathons, and even began doing triathlons in his 50s.

Butch loved to read and almost always carried a book with him. He took delight in boasting that his grandfather had invented the art of sentence diagramming, and adhered strictly to certain rules of grammar. Ending a sentence in a preposition was prohibited, and would draw forth his favorite correction: “Ending a sentence with a preposition is something up with which I will not put”.

After retiring from medicine, Butch moved full time to Sherwood Forest.

This old soldier did die finally but is not likely to fade away in our memories.

Butch is survived by a daughter, Beth House Graham of Baltimore, a son Hugh Osgood House of Annapolis MD, and 8 grandchildren. Another daughter, Kimberly Eryn Hudiburg died in 1997. A sister, Toni Aiello House, also predeceased him.