Dr. Robert August Kallsen
The elder August C. Kallsen must have considered himself the luckiest man alive. His father Peter gave him 160 acres of prime southwestern Minnesota farmland as a wedding present. His bride Lore gave him five stalwart sons in Louie, Richard, Robert, Leslie, and Loren. He ran the only machine shop in Jasper; he ran the big farm; and he ran for Pipestone County Auditor. He probably never sat down to rest. No wonder Robert August Kallsen picked up the refrain “Work’s the Thing That Makes Men Sing” and carried it all his life.
At the University of Minnesota, Robert entered the US Navy V12 program and then sailed into the Western Pacific aboard the U.S.S. Minneapolis. One day his commanding officer laid himself down on a gurney and ordered the young doctor to perform his first emergency appendectomy. Kallsen decided on a career of internal medicine.
Upon returning to the states, he looked up Mavis Corkery, “This gorgeous creature whom I’d met at the UW”. He couldn’t resist her flamboyant confidence and ready wit. When she played it cool and mentioned “another man”, Kallsen fired off his legendary telegram: “Stop! (stop) Stop! (stop) Stop! (stop).” She said “OK, Pop”, and he was hers.
The Kallsens settled in La Jolla California, where he associated with the Scripps Institute as a researcher. But he’d always wanted to be a country doctor, and finally talked Mavis into moving to the small town of Crosby in central Minnesota. This worked great until the winter snows came, and Mavis called from the railroad station to invite Robert to join her and the kids on the Coast.
Kallsen’s medical practice in Tacoma spanned nearly half a century. He made house calls into every part of town at all hours of the night. Widely respected for his kind and gentle nature, he was beloved by his patients and by the generation of medical residents he taught. His patients became his friends. He finally retired at the age of eighty.
When Pop took some time off from his medical practice, he’d work some more. When he ran out of places to plant a rhody in his yard, he would move one. Asked why he was doing this, he’d say it wasn’t about the rhody; it was all about the work.
Pop was a dry fly purist. Like his fast friend and fishing mentor Dr. Larry Brigham, he’d cast his line quartering upstream. Regarding every other fishing technique, he’d smile and say, That’s not fishing; that’s just catching.
Pop was a No Fear skier who would not quit. He bumped down Bull Run on his back at the age of seventy-six. When his heart was fitted with a pacemaker, he couldn’t wait to try it out on a black diamond ski run.
When Pop turned ninety-two, he said he had only two regrets in life. Looking back, he was sure he could have had another five good years of work in him, and perhaps another year or two of skiing.
Here is a life very well lived, profoundly successful in so many ways, summed up by the mantra, “Work’s the Thing That Makes Men Sing”. We like to believe that Heaven completes the dreams that our lives here on earth cannot fulfill. Pop, here’s your dream: your work is not done; go to it with a song.
Robert was preceded to Heaven by his wife of sixty-five years Mavis Corkery Kallsen. He is survived by children Clare Kallsen (Larry West), Phil (Peggy) Kallsen, Laurie George (Kinne Hawes), Ron Kallsen, and MaryAnne Kallsen (Michael DeBlasi); grandchildren Dawn (Holke) Mayer (Andy), Bob Roggenbuck (Katie), Shannon Kallsen, Melissa Kallsen, Robin Kallsen, Patrick George, Whitney George, Andy George, Steven George, Leonardo DeBlasi, and Vincenzo DeBlasi; great-grandchildren Jordan Novotny, Will Mayer, Eliza Mayer, Cade Roggenbuck, and Presley Roggenbuck. All of us combined might hope to muster half his work ethic.
Donations in Robert’s name can be made to the Nature Conservancy at www.
nature.org.
A memorial service will be at 11:00 AM on Saturday, the Twenty-first of April,
in the Old Saint Peter’s Church at 2910 North Starr Street in Tacoma, with reception to follow at 3011 North 29th Street.
Please visit our online guest book at www.islandfuneral.com.
Paid Obituary.
