Rickard William McLean, MD, passed away at age 94 at Redwood Heights Assisted Living Facility in Salem, Oregon, on Oct. 8, 2017. Rickard was born, with his twin brother Richard Leroy, on April 8, 1923, in Winthrop to Arnetta Louise Ziegler and Chauncey Leroy McLean. Rickard married Marjorie Jean Dimm on July 20, 1947, at Rose City Park Presbyterian Church in Portland, Oregon. After completing premedical studies at Whitman College in Washington, Rickard completed his medical school training at the University of Oregon Medical School (now Oregon Health and Science University) in 1948. He was honorably discharged from the U.S. Navy in 1947. While studying for his psychiatric residency in Pueblo, Colorado, he returned to the Navy to serve the Marine Corps as a physician during the Korean War. He was again honorably discharged in 1952. He has two children, Mark Thomas McLean and Victoria Lynne McLean, and three grandchildren.
Dr. McLean settled in Reedsport, Oregon, with his family and remained in the community as a respected and loved physician until he retired in 1993. In 2007, he moved to Salem to be closer to family. He practiced as a physician and surgeon until he became certified as a family practice physician in 1978. He was awarded Oregon Family Practice Physician of the year in 1989 by the American Academy of Family Physicians. In 1973, he took a sabbatical to complete a surgical residency at Providence Hospital in Portland. He was an integral part of the community, the church and in the world by taking his skill as a healer to other continents and cultures including Bolivia and Swaziland. He was an active member of the United Presbyterian Church in Reedsport. He loved gardening, the outdoors, photography and travel and his family home in the North Cascades. He was the father who said, “Let’s climb that mountain!” or, “Let’s visit China.” He returned home with his family every year to backpack or cross country ski in the North Cascades that he loved so well.
Rickard is survived by his children, Mark McLean and Vicki McLean; his brother Lynn McLean; his sister Florence Templeman; and three grandchildren. Services will be held at Reedsport United Presbyterian Church on Nov. 18 at 10 a.m. and Redwood Heights Assisted Living Facility at 1:30 p.m. in Salem on Nov. 11 at 10:30 a.m. Interment will be in May 2018 when the sunflowers are blooming on the hillsides in the Methow Valley at Sullivan Cemetery, where his wife precedes him. Donations can be made in his memory to United Presbyterian Church in Reedsport, Oregon; Reedsport Rotary Scholarship Foundation; or Family Practice Department, Oregon Health Science and University.
