Exeter-----Henry L. Hood, M.D., 90, of RiverWoods at Exeter, died Saturday, February 18, 2012 at the Exeter Hospital.
Dr. Hood was born August 15, 1921 in Springfield, Vermont, the son of Roxie L. (Page) and Paul Kendall Hood, Sr. His family eventually settled in and around Laconia, N.H. where he graduated from high school in 1939. In 1943 he graduated from Cornell University with a B. S. in Accounting. In his senior year he went to get a loan from the university to pay for membership in an honor society and learned he was the most borrowed student in the school’s history. Later he served as a trustee for Bucknell University for 20 years where he recognized the necessity of building an endowment for the purpose of providing significant financial aid to undergraduates.
After graduation, he served with the U. S. Army Field Artillery (1943-1946) as a liaison pilot on the island on Leyte. One of his tent mates was the battalion surgeon, who with military training suspended, conducted pediatric clinics at a primitive native hospital. Flying him to these clinics and witnessing the miracles he worked for these children inspired Dr. Hood to resume his previously abandoned goal of becoming a doctor. He graduated from Cornell Medical College in 1951, earning the Good Physician Award from his peers. He had originally planned to return to New England and work as a family practitioner, but instead developed an interest in neurosurgery and completed a residency in this specialty at New York Hospital-Cornell Medical Center in 1957.
He began his neurosurgical career in 1957 at Geisinger Medical Center in Danville, PA where he founded the department of neurosurgery and served as its Director until 1979. In 1974, on the basis of the medical staff’s consensus, he was named President of the Geisinger Medial Center. He oversaw years of growth and change in health care delivery systems that resulted in a multi institutional health system that was reorganized eventually into the Geisinger Health System Foundation. He served as Chief Executive Officer until his retirement in 1991. He was beloved by patients and employees alike, and in 2008 was honored by the dedication of the Henry Hood Center for Health Research at Geisinger. In 1993 he returned to New England in order to live near his children and grandchildren.
He was a phenomenally hard worker who was still able to find the time to encourage his children in the pursuit of their passions. He was good at just about everything he turned his attention to, and enjoyed drawing cartoons that he left along with notes for his wife or children upon his early morning leave takings or late night arrivals. He loved his family dearly and was a champion of each and every one of them. He was a keeper of family stories and capable of spinning one out that no one had ever heard before, right up until his death. He was a master of understatement and quotable phrases, an optimist who never complained, even during the long and difficult illness at the end of his life.
Dr. Hood is survived by his wife, Nancy Hood, of Exeter; a son, Craig A. Hood and his wife Amy Brnger of Portsmouth, N.H.; three daughters, Nancy Hood and her husband Tom Jamison of Putney, Vermont, Susan Hood of Keene, N.H. and Michele Hood and her partner Deb Lukan of Keene, N.H.; three grandchildren, Emily Jane Hood of Spofford, N.H., Madeline Veitch of Chapel Hill, N.C., and Audrey Hood of Portsmouth, N.H.; four nieces and twelve nephews. In addition to his parents, Dr. Hood was predeceased by his first wife, Jane A. (Steady) Hood in 2003, and by three sisters, Harriot Booth, Mary Louise Harvey, and Roxanna Tillotson, and a brother, Paul Hood.
There will be a memorial service at RiverWoods in Exeter on Saturday, March 10 at 2:00 p.m.
In lieu of flowers, memorial donations may be made to the C-S Genetics Fund, Geisinger Health System Fdn., 100 North Academy Ave., Danville, PA 17822-6019; the Jane Hood Memorial Scholarship Fund, 330 Pine St., Suite 400, Williamsport, PA 17701; Monadnock Family Services, 64 Main St., Keene, N.H. 03431; or The Benevolent Fund at RiverWoods, Exeter, N.H. 03833.
Wilkinson-Beane-Simoneau-Paquette Funeral Home & Cremation Services, 164 Pleasant Street, Laconia, N. H. is in charge of the arrangements. For more information and to view an online memorial go to www.wilkinsonbeane.com.