May 17, 1917 - Dec. 19, 2009
A memorial service for Dr. Robert W. Gage, a member of the UU Society of Amherst, will be held Saturday, February 20 at the Meetinghouse at a time to be announced.
In addition to Peg, his wife of 66 years, Bob is survived by four children and their spouses and by 11 grandchildren: Meg Gage and Steve King, also of Amherst; Jon and Leigh Gage of Larchmont, NY; David Gage and Judy Epstein of New York City, and Rob Gage and Hildy Tow of Narberth, PA. A fifth child, Briggi Kinast Donnan, joined the family in 1959 as an American Field Service exchange student and has become a member of the family as well. Grandchildren include Matt, Mollie, Simon, Isaiah, Jesse, Ben, Melissa, Curtis, Ethan, Shawn and Lea.
In lieu of flowers the family suggests contributions to the causes Bob supported: ACLU, 125 Broad St, NY, NY 10004 or Mass-Care, 33 Harrison Ave. 5th Floor, Boston, 02111.
Born in Concord, MA, Bob received his undergraduate degree in 1938 from Massachusetts State College in Amherst, which later became the University of Massachusetts. In 1942, he graduated from Harvard Medical School. While serving as an intern at Pennsylvania Hospital, Bob Gage met and fell in love with a registered nurse, Margaret “Peg” Anna Rowland. They were married in 1943.
Bob served the U.S. Navy as a ship’s surgeon in World War II. Following the war, the Gages moved to Pennsylvania, where he made house calls throughout a broad rural area.
In 1954, the Gages came to Amherst, where Bob built a private medical practice. In 1960, the University of Massachusetts recruited him to direct and overhaul its health services. He won student support for a new mandatory annual health services fee, which enabled a series of innovative college health services – some controversial. They included contraception education, self-help clinics, peer-education counseling on sexual relations, and by the late 1960s, a first student-staffed “crisis counseling” center for fellow students with drug problems. Over the next decade, UMass became a health care model for universities across the U.S. In 1972, Bob won the ACHA’s prestigious Edward Hitchcock Award for his contribution to the field of college health.
He held the position of Director of Health Services until 1971, when he became the University’s vice chancellor for student affairs. He left in 1976 to obtain a master’s degree from the Harvard School of Public Health. He returned to UMass as Graduate Studies Director of its School of Public Health.
In the larger community, Bob served as board member and then chairman of both the local and regional school committees, as a member of Amherst Town Meeting, and on the Amherst Board of Health. He was co-founder and first chairman of the Amherst Civil Rights Commission, and an active member of Physicians for Social Responsibility, a group opposed to the nuclear arms buildup.
In retirement, he helped lead the development of the Applewood retirement community in Amherst, where he and Peg lived during his final years.