"George William Ingels, M.D., was born September 1, 1936 in Prague Oklahoma. Dr. Ingels lived every day as if it were his last. On April 8, 2020 he was right. He was 83. For details see dignitymemorial.com."
We found the above obituary, with blanks to be filled in by us, in a file marked "funeral." This was typical of his sense of humor and also of his planning, preparedness, simplicity, and loving care of family.
Born to George Henry William Ingels and Rose Svoboda Ingels, George spent his early childhood moving around the US during his father's World War II Army service. George felt that this taught him resilience and self-sufficiency. The family, including younger brother Bill, eventually settled down in Norman, Oklahoma.
It was at Norman High School that George met Jane Brixey, love of his life and partner through countless projects and adventures. They dated for five years and married in 1958. George graduated from the University of Oklahoma and OU College of Medicine. He completed pathology residency at Baylor Medical Center in Dallas, then served as US Air Force captain from 1966-1968 at Scott Air Force Base in Illinois.
In 1968 George and Jane moved to Hall Park (now Norman) with their 4 children. George established the pathology department at Norman Municipal (Regional) Hospital, where he worked until his retirement. He also founded and ran the non-profit Community Medical Laboratory. Upon retirement, he and Jane created Ingels Vineyard in Northeast Norman, where they learned to grow Merlot and award-winning Riesling grapes.
George was dedicated above all to his family. He supported his children and grandchildren in all their academics and activities. He was a Boy Scout leader and Camp Fire Girls dad. He attended countless concerts, recitals, school programs and soccer games, and served as trip doctor when the Oklahoma Youth Orchestra went to China and to Scandinavia. He assisted in many other ways, large and small, through the years. He loved his grandchildren, and for them he gave tractor rides, built a zip line, wiggled his ears, played air hockey, and every 4th of July helped them launch rockets.
George cared deeply about his community. He served four terms as mayor of Hall Park, and served on many boards including for First Christian Church, the Red Cross, Norman Regional, Rotary, and the Central Oklahoma Grape Growers Association. He helped spearhead a number of fundraising efforts, including for his church to buy a new organ and to build a columbarium. He was creative and proactive. He held three patents, started two Hall Park newspapers, built a trail system for the town, and partnered with Jane to write an instruction manual for grape growers, to name just a few of his many projects.
He loved the arts, particularly classical music and photography. He was drum major for both Norman High and OU marching bands. He won awards for photography, oil painting, and sculpture. He took family photos for Christmas cards every year, and printed many of them himself in his darkroom.
George embodied an adventurous, can-do spirit and took on any project that interested him. Whatever he did, he did it well. He built a color TV when color TVs were new. He and Jane designed and built a house and enlisted their kids to help. For their first trip outside the United States, he and Jane embarked on a weeks-long trip with their children that started in Egypt and ended in London, with one carry-on bag per person. He and Jane loved the outdoors, spending both their honeymoon and their 60th anniversary at Rocky Mountain National Park. They hiked around Mt. Blanc, rafted the Colorado River in the Grand Canyon, walked the Milford Track in New Zealand, ziplined in Costa Rica, ventured to Bolivia with Rotary, to Russia and Spain with OU's Fred Jones Art Museum.
George was active until the day he died. He was working at the vineyard when he had a massive stroke. He died shortly afterwards at Norman Regional emergency department, surrounded by Jane and his children and their spouses.
His death leaves a hole in the fabric of our lives that can never be filled, though his spirit continues to enrich us. He showed us how to be cheerful, to fix what is broken, and to keep moving. We will all do our best. He is and always will be missed.
He is survived by his wife, Dorothy Jane (Brixey) Ingels, and by his children and grandchildren: Stephen Clark Ingels (with wife Tanya Ulloa Ingels) and children George William Ingels II and Hannah Karin Ingels, Carolyn Susanne Bradley and children Alexandria Camille Cox and Rachael Joanne Bradley, Gregory Allen Ingels (with wife Kelli Fitzgerald Ingels) and children Henry Fitzgerald Ingels and William Fitzgerald Ingels, and Marianne Ingels Bacharach (with husband Phil Bacharach) and children Audrey Madeline Bacharach and John Maximilian Bacharach. He is also survived by his brother, William Allen Ingels and niece Cynthia Ingels of Santa Rosa, California. He is also survived by sister-in-law Ruth Brixey, nephews Mark (with wife Pam) Brixey, and Tom (with wife Lynda) Brixey, and great nephew Jared Brixey.
A memorial service (in-person only for family) will be livestreamed from First Christian Church of Norman at live.fccnorman.org on September 5, 2020 at 1 pm. Interment will be at the church's columbarium. Remembrances may be shared at dignitymemorial.com.
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