DeLespinasse, Gijsbert Adolph Frederick 1852-1944

DELESPINASSE, ORLEBEKE, COKART

Posted By: Wilma J. Vande Berg - volunteer (email)
Date: 1/15/2014 at 14:01:29

March 16, 1944 Sioux County Herald

Pioneer Doctor Dies in West
The de Lespinasses were an early prominent Orange City family and this community will read with regret of the doctor's passing.

Mrs. Cobie de Lespinasse writes that her brother, Henry is superintendent of the For Orchard, Oregon school system and that her brother Dick Muyskens has a store and service station and the post office at South worth, Oregon. They are all doing well and happy in their work. She says that her motherin-law, Mrs. de Lespinasse will stay in her home during the summer but will be with them during the winter.

Although she is 86 years of age, she is still healthy and spry. She writes also that Mrs. De Crane is well tho rather weak.

The doctor enjoyed life until the end she says and after he had eaten a bite of supper he passed on without a struggle. The doctor once told the assistant editor "that he had a big belly and a poor heart" but spite of that he seems to havedone fairly well.' There are not many who arrive at his age and retain their faculties until the last breath.

Dr. G. A. F. de Lespinasse died of old age, having arrived at 91 years, at his home at Lakebay, Washington, March 3. Services were conducted at the Gig Harbor Funeral Home followed by cremation.

Dr. G. A. F. de Lespinasse was born in 1852. in Vaasen, Gelderland. 'He spent his early student days in Holland and upon arriving in Orange City at the age of twenty he was one of four youngmen who studied medicine under his father, Dr. A. F. H. de Lespinasse.

The young doctor went to Oostburg,, Wisconsin to begin his medical practice: There he married Sarah M. Orlebeek, a teacher, in 1879. Upon the death of the father Orange City asked the doctor to consider taking up his father's practice and this the young man was happy to do. He remained one of the community doctors till 1910 when he moved west leaving his large practice to his younger brother Henry who later also left Orange City for the West.

Surviving Dr. de Lespinasse are his wife , Sarah M., his son Dr. A. F. de Lespinasse and the latter's children, Franklin of Washington D. C. and Marie, Mrs. Don Covey of Marshfield Oregon, great grandsons Paul and Henry of Washington D. C., his sister, Mrs. A. F. de Crane Cotterell and the latter's daughters, Mrs. J. C. Zubli and Mrs. William Cook and their children.

Mrs. Zubli conducted the private services saying, " Since we, who have gathered .together to pay final respects to one whom we have known so long and so well it is quite unnecessary to review the main events in a " long life. It is for us then to try to life. It is for us then to try to find comfort and hope and faith in something which lies beyond the knowledge of mortals." "There is a law in physics that 'action and reaction are equal.' A similar law in the realm of moral action seems acceptable yet less capable of mathematical proof. So it is with life after death, which scientific investigation has been utterly defeated in solving. Whether this will ever be solved is something we do not even anticipate. In the meantime, each one builds a code of morals which some may name religion while others call it philosophy. With this in mind we turn to our sources of silent convictions which are better stated than our clumsy words can express. We realize that the mortal remains lie before us, yet do we accept that this is the end of all? Like a house that has been lived in some ninety years, having gone through the changes which any material house goes through, we now find it empty and we feel again confronted with the eternal problem of life and death."

(This news of the doctor's death was sent to Mr. Charles L. Dyke by Mrs. Cobie De Lespinasse of Hubbard, Ore.

He was the son of Adolphous Frederick Henry De Lespinasse and Albertina Cokart.)