(June 5, 2015 - by Ralph Kurtenbach)  Day in day out for nearly seven decades in medicine, Dr. Ernest T. “Ted” Anderson would put into place the earpieces of a stethoscope and hold the diaphragm against the patient’s chest to hear the pace and steadiness of a heartbeat.

This brief procedure was only a beginning for patients who entered the clinic of “Dr. Ted,” whose career as a family physician spanned 69 years. Always, the conversations probed a person’s other heart matters in a quiet way that reached beyond the confines of evidence-based medicine. He listened intently as people would come to him with the frustrations, hurts or sorrows of their lives.

It wasn’t easy to maintain a compassionate response, for the patient load was heavy for Anderson. It helped that the good doctor “loved what he did as a doctor,” according to his daughter, Sharon Babbitt. “But in addition to caring for people’s physical illnesses and complaints, he loved to talk to them about their lives and the Lord.” Babbitt worked as an office nurse in the clinic for 40 years.

“Like Billy Graham, my dad’s message was simple, impactful, and always the same,” she added. “Many, many times he would share John 3:16, ‘For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever (and he would put your name there) believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.’”

The concept of God loving people and offering to save them from sin’s penalties was a message that Anderson had embraced as a teenager. Thereafter, he aligned his endeavors with that central thought. It permeated what “Dr. Ted” did in medicine, in church involvement and later in foreign missions.  He was seeing patients four mornings a week until Feb. 18, 2014, one month before his 93rd birthday.

Anderson died of aspiration pneumonia on Thursday, May 14, after a short hospital stay. His family had been with him earlier on the same day. He was 94.

Early Life and Power of a Sister’s Suggestion

Born in Troy, N.Y., on March 20, 1921, Ernest T. Anderson was the third child of Ernest W. and Mathilda Anderson. His grandparents had emigrated from Norway and Sweden in the 1890s which imprinted the children with a strong work ethic and religious roots in Blooming Grove Reformed Church.

He attended area schools and went on to Albany Teacher’s College. As he neared graduation, his sister Ruth urged him to apply to Albany Medical School. When he did so, he was accepted. During his last year of medical school, he met Wanda Blake, a nursing student at Russell Sage College. They fell in love and were engaged in 1944.

Upon graduating from medical school, Anderson served as an Army physician in Veterans Affairs hospitals in Biloxi, Miss., and New Orleans, La. From 1946 to 1950, he worked at the Veterans Affairs hospital in Bath, N.Y.

Ted and Wanda were married on Sept. 20, 1947, marking the beginning of a full, impactful life as the couple focused on the family, church, missions and doctoring. After doing medical work in Bath and later in an eastern Kentucky coal mining area (1950-1957), the Andersons moved back to Rochester to set up a home-based clinic.

“I would constantly wander into the office side of the house because I found it so interesting even at age 3 or 4,” remembered Babbitt. “Sometimes I gave the kids lollypops after they had a shot. We never knew quite what would arrive at our home/office. One morning we came downstairs to find a young mother with her newborn baby who had been delivered during the night.”

“Dr. Ted” and Wanda served as deacon and deaconess at Browncroft Community Church in Rochester. At his clinic, he heard about Radio Station HCJB as Clarence Jones, one of the ministry’s cofounders, came to him as a patient, leading to the Andersons’ involvement in missions. The station is an Ecuador-based ministry of Reach Beyond (formerly HCJB Global). The couple made over 30 visits to the ministry in Ecuador throughout the years, mostly in the 1970s and 1980s.

In an interview in 1982, Anderson called his involvement with the mission an “avocation which is very fulfilling to both my wife and me. We are currently involved in giving five weeks of our time each year to this outstanding organization. It’s an exciting opportunity to help fulfill our Lord’s command, ‘Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature’” (Mark 16:15).

“I knew and loved Dr. Anderson for many years,” commented Reach Beyond’s Ed Giesbrecht who held the position of missionary personnel director for many years. “He served very faithfully on our Board of Trustees and candidate committee where he did projective testing and in-depth interviews with missionary candidates. His love for the Lord and His work overseas were obvious to all whom he touched.”

“We were blessed by a long friendship with Dr. Ted and Wanda,” added retiree Darlene Peters and her husband, Doug, who served with Dr. Ted on the candidate committee. “We remember him as a warm, caring person, a good listener and one who shared insightful advice. Their home was always open to missionaries, and on a number of occasions we visited them and enjoyed good food and warm fellowship.”

Treating Billy Graham: The Crusade Must Go On

Babbitt recalls that in the autumn of 1988, shortly before a Billy Graham Crusade in Rochester, the famous revival preacher had been bitten by a poisonous spider, a brown recluse.

Assured of excellent care by the crusade director’s own physician, Rev. Graham came to Rochester anyway where “Dr. Ted” admitted him to the hospital and started him on IV antibiotics. Soon the evangelist was better, and “the staff and patients on his floor at Highland Hospital were all touched by his gracious visits and prayer with them, despite his own serious infection,” according to Babbitt.

“Dr. Ted” was predeceased by his loving wife, Wanda, who died in August 2012 after nearly 65 years of marriage, and two sisters, Ruth Whitegiver and Emely Sepe. He is survived by his six children, Mark, Timothy, Sharon, Daniel, Jonathan and David, as well as 13 grandchildren and 14 great-grandchildren.

A memorial service is set for 2 p.m. Sunday, June 7, at Browncroft Community Church in Rochester, N.Y. Memorial gifts may be sent to the church which will then distribute the donations to Reach Beyond and other international and local ministries.

Sources: Reach Beyond, Keenan Funeral Home