Donald G. Vellek

Donald Gabriel Vellek was born at home on a farm in Bonhomme County, South Dakota March 3rd, 1930. He attended a one room school house through the fifth grade, until the family moved to Tyndall, South Dakota. Donald’s grandpa (Vellek) taught him his prayers in Czech. As a boy he had a paper route and as he grew up he worked on several farms and the railroad as a gandydancer. Later he worked on the Gavin Point dam in SD.

Donald went on to graduate magna cum laude from the University of South Dakota and is a member of Phi Beta Kappa. He continued there for the two year medical school before transferring to Northwestern University, Chicago where he received his MD in 1954. He married his wife of (58) years that year and continued his training at Chicago Wesley Hospital. After a year residency at Sacred Heart Hospital in Yankton, South Dakota, he returned to Chicago Wesley for a residency in Internal Medicine. The air force interrupted that training and he moved to Malmstrom Air Force Base in Montana to head the medicine department at the hospital there. Upon honorable discharge, he finished his Internal Medicine residency at the VA Hospital in Minneapolis, MN. Donald went into practice at the Nicollet Clinic, Minneapolis and served as Chairman of the board at the time it merged with the St. Louis Park medical group to become the Park Nicollet Clinic, a specialty group that grew to over 500 doctors where he served on the board of directors, as chairman of the investment committee and retirement investment committee. Dr. Vellek formed the Executive Health program that included diabetes management and considerable lipid management for executives from the United States and overseas. He taught as a Clinical Assistant professor at the University of Minnesota. Donald was

published in the Journal Lancet and was an invited guest lecturer at Mayo Clinic and the Itasca Conference.

Donald adored his children and vacations were often spent with them tent camping in national parks from coast to coast; instilling in them the love of nature and our great country. He enjoyed photography and has thousands of pictures of his beloved mountains, animals and birds.

After 45 years of medical practice and complete devotion to medical progress and his patients, Donald and Ita moved to Atlanta, GA. There he served on the Curriculum Committee of the Emory University Osher Continuing Education for Retired Professionals and sang in the choir of The Cathedral of Christ the King as he had done in choirs from Montana to Minnesota.

He and his wife of have four children and he is survived by his wife Ita, Dona Vellek of Atlanta, GA, Linda Kang (Seattle) and husband Dr. Kalle Kang (Seattle), sons John and wife Soonjung Vellek (Seattle), Dr. Mark and wife Ann Vellek (Columbia, MO), grandchildren Jason Anderson, Andrea Klein, Benjamin Vellek, Melissa Klein, and Tessa Vellek, and nephews Gregory Schaefer, MD and family of Nampa Idaho, Robert Loe and family of Pierre, SD, Robert O. Loe and family of Vilsek, Germany, nieces Kari Janek and family of Sioux Falls, SD, Louisa King and husband Tom of Manassas, VA, Janet Schaeffer of Mesa, Arizona, brother-in-law Oscar Loe of Sioux Falls, SD and brother Leonard Vellek of Hot Springs, SD, nephew Shawn and nieces GayLynn and Kathy. His only sister Dorothy preceded him in death. The funeral mass will be held on Saturday, January 5, 2013 at 11:00 AM at The Cathedral of Christ the King Catholic Church, 2699 Peachtree Rd. NE, Atlanta, GA 30305

Arrangements under the direction of H.M. Patterson & Son-Oglethorpe Hill Chapel, Atlanta, GA.