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Feb. 19, 2004, 9:54PM
Deaths
Bailey, 86, physician to president, farmers
By ROMA KHANNA
Copyright 2004 Houston Chronicle
Dr. Charles William Bailey, a physician who delivered more than 3,000 babies during his 43-year career including two of President Lyndon B. Johnson's grandchildren, died Tuesday in Austin. He was 86.
Bailey began his practice in Austin in 1942 after he graduated from the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston, treating many people who worked on farms and had little money to pay for his services.
"Of all of my dad's patients, those were the ones he loved the most," said Bailey's son, Dr. Charles William Bailey Jr., a plastic surgeon who practices in Houston.
"Because they didn't have any money, they would bring him firewood in the winter and corn or peaches and pears (in summer).
"There was a little lady, a widow, who baked him a cake every Thursday and we would have to go pick it up."
Among Bailey's patients were prominent people such as Johnson and his family members, whom Bailey cared for when they were in Austin. The doctor met Johnson through a family connection and became his friend and adviser in addition to being his physician, traveling with Johnson to numerous functions such as a NATO conference.
Shortly after Bailey began to practice in Austin, he volunteered to serve in World War II, spending two years with the Army as a combat surgeon in Europe. His work earned him numerous medals including a Purple Heart.
Though he had a thriving practice and had received his medical degree 25 years earlier, Bailey enrolled at the University of Texas Law School and received his degree in 1966.
"His office was right across the street from the law school and he knew the dean, the assistant dean and several of the professors," his son said.
"My dad was intellectually a very curious person, so he started walking over there and taking a couple of courses a semester. He enjoyed it for its own sake."
Bailey used his law education to help friends, including an acquaintance who could not afford a lawyer. Bailey defended him in his only criminal case and won an acquittal.
Another of Bailey's passions was his family.
He met his wife of 64 years, Mary Love, who survives him, when they were high school students, both drum majors in the Austin High Band. The couple have four children, 10 grandchildren and eight great-grandchildren.
"He touched so many lives through his work that the outpouring has been amazing," his son said. "But no one was touched more or benefited more than us, his family. We were lucky."
Bailey also is survived by his brother Robert R. Bailey, of Mesquite; daughters, Barbara Gaines of Dripping Springs, Mary Love of Minneapolis, and Kay Head of Dallas.
Services will be held 2 p.m. today at the Central Christian Church, 1110 Guadalupe, in Austin.
The family suggests that donations be made to any charity dedicated to helping those with heart disease.
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