Korfmacher, Stanley D. 1931-2010

KORFMACHER

Posted By: Marilyn Holmes
Date: 1/9/2019 at 12:08:00

The Inland Valley Daily Bulletin
March 2, 2010

LONGTIME REDLANDS DOCTOR DIES AT AGE 78

REDLANDS - Stan Korfmacher, a longtime Redlands resident, doctor and musician, died Monday after a more than five-year battle with prostate cancer. He was 78.

Korfmacher was born Dec. 7, 1931, in Grinnell, Iowa, to Edwin and Olga. He grew up in Grinnell and graduated from Grinnell High School. In 1953, he graduated from Carleton College, and moved on to Northwestern Medical School where he received a doctorate degree in medicine.

After completing his internship and residency, Korfmacher worked as assistant chief of medicine from 1961 to 1963 at the United States Public Health Service in San Francisco. There he met his wife, Jan, who also worked at the hospital.

"We were married in Berkeley March 30, 1963, then we moved to Redlands," Jan said. "On November 1, he took a job working at Beaver Medical Clinic."

For the next 31 years, Korfmacher practiced internal medicine at Beaver, treating heart attack and stroke patients, among others.

"He was a very caring physician," said Redlands resident Jim Belote, who was also a doctor at Beaver and began working with Korfmacher in 1968. "His patients always said he took his time with them, listened to them."

Other colleagues remembered Korfmacher as being astute and detail-oriented, traits they said made him a better physician.

"Stan was very interested in endocrinology and always stayed up to date in that field," said Craig Wesson, who was also a doctor at Beaver and met Korfmacher in 1967. "So he was our unofficial endocrinologist. He paid an unfailing attention to his patients."

In his early years in Redlands, Korfmacher and his wife began their family, eventually having three sons and one daughter.

"We did a lot with the kids on the weekends because he was on call so much during the week," Jan said. "We would always do something when he was free, like a picnic or a walk. We had a cabin in Forest Falls that was right on Mill Creek, so we'd go up there a lot and it was just so much fun."

Korfmacher retired in 1994 and began fulfilling promises made years prior.

"Everyone would come to (Korfmacher) asking him to join different things or help out with things and he would tell them 'I will help when I retire,'" Jan said. "And when he did, they came in droves and he really did get involved."

He was a former board member of the Redlands Conservancy, chairman of the Cultural Arts Commission for eight years, was a board member, was a docent of the Southern California Medical Museum for 20 years, and was a board member of the Edward Dean Museum.

At the time of his death, he was president of the Redlands Fortnightly Club.

"The last paper he wrote for the Fortnightly Club was called 'A second look at Redlands first,'" Jan said.

"Larry Burgess had written something about firsts in Redlands and he thought that was so interesting that his ran with that idea and wrote a more in-depth paper about that."

That curious nature reflected itself in the numerous collections Kormacher had.

"He was a brilliant man," Belote said. "He had an extensive mineral collection that he'd acquired over the years. He not only collected minerals but old glass, interesting furniture, flower vases from early automobiles, early light bulbs. And he was a very organized person and had information about all his collections and liked to talk about his collections."

"He was very much a mineralogist," Wesson said. "He knew a lot about minerals, gem stones. He was what people would call a 'rock hound.'"

Besides collecting things, Korfmacher enjoyed landscaping is yard with flowering plants, many of which were rare hybrids, his son Karl said.

"All of our memories of dad are out in the yard," Karl said.

Korfmacher also loved cars, particularly his 1968 BMW, and dogs, of which he had many, mostly dachshunds. He also enjoyed traveling.

Korfmacher traveled with his wife and sometimes with friends to Australia, New Zealand, Scandinavia, and many places within the United States.

"I think the last trip we took to New Zealand was one of the most exciting," Jan said. "We hired a small plane and flew over the southern Alps and Milford Sound. It was just so beautiful. I think he really enjoyed that."

Of all his hobbies and activities, Korfmacher enjoyed the musical organizations most, Jan said. He played the clarinet in the Redlands Symphony and the Redlands Fourth of July Band, which he helped found in 1981, He was a past president of Spinet. In total he played in five orchestras and concert bands.

Playing the clarinet was not his only musical talent.

"He was a terrific clarinetist, but oh could he whistle," Wesson said. "He could whistle and make it sound like a bird or a clarinet. In the evening, we would stay and finish up paperwork and my office was right down the hall from is so I'd hear him whistling every night. He had the most ingenious endless whistling capability."

Korfmacher is survived by his wife Jan; his son Karl and daughter-in-law Katrina of Rochester, N.Y.; daughter Karen of Port Hueneme, Calif.; son Jon and daughter-in-law Barbara of Chicago, Ill.; and son Kurt, of Austin, Texas. He also has four grandchildren, Matias and Stefan of Rochester and Theo and Anna of Chicago.

The family is planning a public memorial service sometime in April.

In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to the Redlands Conservancy or the Redlands Symphony Association.

Cortner Chapel is handling arrangements.