Obituary

            

Dr John W Rosenberger, age 88, died peacefully on the evening of January 30, 2022. Born in Cleveland, Ohio, "Dutch" Rosenberger played football at Shaker Heights High, rowed crew at Dartmouth College (class of '56), and received his medical degree from McGill University in Montreal, Canada (class of '60). He married his first wife, Sarah Carr, in 1959 and after a year of internship in Chicago and the birth of their first child, Matthew (Matt), the family moved to New York City.  Dutch took a year off from medical training to pursue his ongoing interest in religion and community service, spending that first NYC year at Union Theological Seminary in Upper Manhattan.  The following year he resumed his medical career, becoming a Psychiatry resident at NY State Psychiatric Institute and completing his training in psychoanalysis. Though he protested against the Vietnam War on a number of occasions including the famous “raise the Pentagon” sit-in, he served his required two years as Captain in the US Army Medical Corps at Fort Dix, NJ, evaluating and treating servicemen for psychiatric issues. Just prior to this, the family welcomed a second child, Katharine (Kate). Following this, Dr Rosenberger had a long and distinguished career in New York City, serving as Director of Community Psychiatry at Harlem Hospital, Head of Psychiatric Residency Training at St Luke's Roosevelt Hospital, and as Supervising Psychiatrist at the Manhattan Psychiatric Center on Ward's Island. Retiring from the Center in 2007, Dr Rosenberger also maintained a continuous private practice in psychiatry from 1967 through 2015, helping many people and becoming a Distinguished Life Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association. Dutch will be remembered not just for the many patients that he helped and students he trained, but also for his tremendous physical energy, his expansive good cheer, his many long-lasting friendships, and his deep enjoyment of life - from good food, canoe trips, travels abroad, family vacations in Otis MA and on Lake Winnepesaukee NH, Christmases with his family roasting huge turkeys and making delicious pies, to delighting in vigorous intellectual conversation on a variety of subjects. He will be remembered with great love, deep affection, and a huge smile by his two children (Matt Rosenberger and Kate Staley), his son-in-law (Chris Staley), his two grandchildren (Victoria and Rowan Staley), his former step-children (Ted Deinard and Caitlin Blasdell, children of Lile Deinard), his nieces and nephews and their families, and his many devoted friends. A memorial service has yet to be set, but updates on this can be seen and comments received at jwrdutchrip.blogspot.com. May he Rest in Peace and be at one with God, about whom he (dad) was always so curious.