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Tireless worker to eradicate polio had a very personal reason to fight
Word came Monday of the death April 17 of Waterloo, Iowa Rotarian Douglas Oberman. For more than 50 years Doug lived with the body-wrenching disease of polio.
Despite losing the use of his hands and arms as a young boy, Doug managed to graduate from high school, college and law school and have a long career in the Waterloo firm of Swisher and Cohrt.
In the 1950’s when immunization experts like Dr. Jonas Salk were working on a vaccine for the disease which struck over 600,000 people a year world-wide, those medical professionals discovered three strands of the disease and somehow Doug managed to contract all three. The result—he spent many hours every day in an iron lung which helped him breathe. In later years his time in the artificial breathing machine increased to the point that at the end he rarely left it.
In the mid 1980’s when Rotary kicked off its effort to eradicate polio, his law partner and fellow polio victim Chuck Swisher agreed to head the fund drive in district 5970 to raise $500,000 as part of a Rotary-wide goal of $120 million. Doug became our club’s chair. Our goal was about $25,000 and Doug would only report that our drive was going well but we needed a little more. In 1995 when I became district governor, I found out we had reached the goal in the first month but Doug wanted us to do more.
And we did. A lot more. Rotarians around the world blew away the $120 million goal too, hitting $247 million.
In 2002 international president Richard King of California heard Doug make a presentation in Mason City, he asked Oberman to travel to Barcelona, Spain to address RI’s international president. Club member Steve Thorpe was Doug’s travel companion/care giver leading to many close calls and near disasters. But Doug hung on and addressed over 30,000 members, asking them to continue to fight to the end.
-Waterloo Rotarian and Past District Governor Dave Buck
Visitation for Doug will be at Orchard Hill Church, 1215 Elmridge Drive, Cedar Falls, Thursday, April 21, 2016 from 4 to 7 p.m. with a Memorial Service at 10:30 a.m. Friday, April 22, 2016, at Orchard Hill Church. Private burial in Garden of Memories Cemetery precedes the service.
Contributions may be made in his name to Orchard Hill Church or the Rotary Foundation Polio Campaign to help eradicate polio in the world. Those donations may be sent to the Waterloo Downtown Rotary Club P.O. Box 118, Waterloo, IA 50704.
Arrangements by Locke Funeral Home, 319-233-6138. Online condolences may be left www.LockeFuneralHome.com.