Name: Evergreen Washelli Funeral Home & Cemetery
Address: Seattle, WA

Dr.Lil was a wonderful caring person, who gave us her time freely. Time that there never seems to be enough of. Dr.Lil and Dr. Earl will both be missed. 

from	Bob McElroy
to	Christine Baguley
date	Sun, Apr 8, 2012 at 10:15 AM
subject	Lillian H. Robinson
mailed-by	 comcast,net


Chris - Thank you for your efforts to inform me of your mother's death last month.  She was a great lady and an outstanding physician and our friend.  John joins me in extending our sympathy.  I keep on my desk something your mother sent me after Suzanne's death which reads:
                                                                                           What is Dying?

                                                                            A ship sails and I stand watching

                                                                               till she fades on the horizon

                                                                               and someone at my side says,

                                                                                "She is gone." Gone where?

                                                                             Gone from my sight, that is all;      

                                                                                  she is just as large

                                                                                   as when I saw her.

                                                                                 The diminished size,

                                                                                and total loss of sight

                                                                                   is in me, not in her,

                                                                             and just at the moment

                                                                             when someone at my side says

                                                                                       "She is gone,"

                                                                                    there are others

                                                                            who are watching her coming,

                                                                                and other voices

                                                                                 take up a glad shout,

                                                                              "There she comes!"

                                                                             and that is dying.

                                                                                                           Bishop Brent
 

I am so happy I have the memories of our visit with her at the end of May last year and that she was able to see John as a adult and loving father and to meet two of his children.  Seeing you and Bruce was unexpected and a real pleasure.  I was stunned when she said you had been married 40 years. Please remember me to Bruce and again, my sympathy.  I will write Julie a note. 

Fond Regards,
Bob


From: Lynne Coen & Charles Hott
Subject: Re: Lillian H. Robinson M.D: September 26, 1918 - March 19, 2012
Date: Wednesday, March 28, 2012, 9:30 AM

Dear Chris and Julie,

My father, Earl's cousin, Alfred Hott (Sabert Alfred Hott), respected and loved your mother.  She was an incredibly good listener, and made me feel she was always interested in me and would talk to me.  I have many fond memories of her in my life, especially in New Orleans.  Even tho  I never liked her mirletons, there was never any left on my plate!  
I'm sorry for our loss, she will be in my thoughts and payers,

Charley Hott
(I will forward this to my Aunt Margaret (Hott) Benton, and cousin John Hott, brother Philip Hott, and other Hott family members)


from            Welch, Susan L
to                Christine Baguley, Julie Robinson
date             Wed, Mar 28, 2012 at 4:36 PM
subject        Lillian
mailed-by   tulane,edu
Chris & Julie
I barely remember you guys (& am sure that goes both ways) but I did want to express my condolences for the loss of your mother... Anyway, as you can see, I work at Tulane (& have for many years) ... & of course Lillian was quite legendary in her time as Chief of Psychiatry!

When I moved to NOLA to go to grad school at the TU School of Public Health (1979!), Lillian loaned me a bed which I used for several years until she needed it back.  I remember going to the house on Holiday (w/Frank & Cherry across the street).  And my mom used to talk about Lillian & her "damn mirletons"---I think Lillian had a mirleton plant in her yard...

Susie  (Pat Hott's daughter)


St. Andrew's Episcopal Church
Seattle, Washington

I'm Lillian's grandson, Dana, and I've been asked to say a few words.  I'm afraid I'll probably be brief, though my grandmother was such an awesome lady she deserves a book.

I guess the first thing to say about my grandmother is regarding her personality and her attitude toward life.  That really is what makes us who we are.  She was Fearless.  Stubborn.  Giving.  The three traits were intimately linked.  She did what she liked, and that so often meant giving of herself.  Her professional life was one of service, first as a family doctor and then as a psychiatrist and teacher.  Mind you, she was a doctor a generation before that was possible for a woman---a woman who took any crap from anyone that is, and she didn't.  She might not always have phrased that quite so politely.  My mother tells me the reason women generally weren't admitted to medical school is that it was felt they would waste their educations by retiring from medicine, becoming housewives as soon as they married and had children.  It seems to me that with more than fifty years in medicine, perhaps my grandmother's education was worth it.  She certainly shows that the educations of my mother, my aunt, and the majority of today's medical students are worth the risks posed by their gender, and I'm proud to be the grandson of one of the women who proved it.

She was devoted to helping her patients and making their lives better.  I have no doubt that she was a very kind and caring physician.  We have certainly heard thanks from patients for her care, and thanks from colleagues for her leadership and involvement.  The gifts she gave to her professional community in terms of teaching, mentoring, and serving on professional organizations stretch beyond my comprehension, and I'm not the one to sing her praises on that.  I can say that I've always bragged about her vote to correct psychiatric nomenclature, striking the 'diagnosis' of homosexuality from the list of mental illnesses.

Even in retirement she gave everything she could.  She interviewed new residents of her retirement home for the newsletter and read to her blind neighbors.  My wife couldn't be here today, so she and a few friends are planning to honor my grandmother's memory by reading to residents at a retirement home near us.

She told me often of her first memory.  It was 1920, she was two years old, and her mother took her along when she went to vote in the first national election in which there was full suffrage for women.  Her mother was wearing a beautiful dress.  She voted for Cox---but Harding won.  She also had many memories of going with her father on his rounds.  A country doctor, he made house calls to see his patients and then on the way home would often shoot a wild bird for dinner.  Grandmother always knew she would be a teacher like her mother or a doctor like her father.  As it turned out, she was both.  I never knew my great-grandparents, but they must have been wonderful people to leave Lillian Harris Robinson with such unambiguous positive regard for them.

Holding family together was very important to Grandma.  She was always trying to make connections between my immediate family and our extended family, and to remind us of our heritage.  A symbol of this is the Robinson tie I'm wearing, one of many she gave me.

I'm told my grandmother placed much importance on family dinners and always said grace.  Once she slipped up at the end of the prayer, and instead of "...make us ever mindful of the needs of others..." she said "...make us ever needful of the minds of others...".  This became a sort of catch phrase for her and perhaps was foreshadowing of her move into Psychiatry.

My mother tells me her most powerful childhood memories of her mother were in the summers.  All sorts of extended family stayed with them every summer, so it was like a family with ten kids.  In July or August they would go camping in Colorado, where my grandparents had met and eloped in 1937.  My grandmother was a juggernaut, the driving force behind many a cross-country road trip with my mom and her siblings, various cousins, my great-grandmother, and copious luggage, all piled into the Oldsmobile.  Breakdowns and flat tires were frequent occurrences in those days.  Picture a recurring scene:  the Oldsmobile parked on the side of the road next to a 'Burma Shave' sign, surrounded by the noisy travelers, and all the luggage stacked on the ground so my teen-aged uncle could access the jack and spare tire.  On one trip across the southwest my great-grandmother Harris insisted on collecting a Saguaro cactus flower they spotted while driving through the Sonoran Desert, just past a billboard advertising 'The Beast of Barstow---only 150 more miles'.  Somewhere there exists film footage that Grandmother shot of my mom on my uncle's shoulders, trying to knock a large flower off of a giant cactus with her grandmother's cane.  This sort of activity must be genetic, as I could see the same thing happening at the insistence of my grandmother, or especially of my mother.

My grandfather Robinson was very fond of power tools, hunting, fishing, and many other outdoor activities.  He even built a sailboat and a camping trailer, among other things.  I'm told my grandmother was always gracious about the many table saws, outboard motors, duck decoys, shotguns, and the like that she received as birthday, Mother's Day, and Christmas presents.

My other grandmother, Billie Baguley, or Grandma B as Naomi and I call her, never tires of telling me how when my parents were married the parents-in-law all became friends and often joined each other for dinner.  The conversation would invariably turn to politics, and Grandmother Robinson always held the liberal side of the argument quite gracefully even though the table was stacked three-to-one against her.  Given what I know of my grandfather Robinson and given that my grandmother Baguley to this day playfully needles my liberalism in our every phone call, this must have been something to see

When Grandmother travelled for professional meetings and conferences for the Episcopal Church, she would often work in visits to friends and relatives.  Once she was snowed in while staying with us in Wenatchee, and relayed through her secretary in New Orleans that she would be late to a conference in Palm Springs where she was speaking.  She found it quite amusing when she got there and no one could understand how she could be snowed in in New Orleans.  You might be surprised how combining conferences and social visits like this is not tor the faint of heart.  My parents tried it once, combining a visit to my four grandparents in New Orleans with an anesthesia conference.  I was born on that trip, three months premature.  The fact that Grandmother Robinson knew which hospital in New Orleans had the best pediatric ICU probably saved my life.  In other words, we should all leave my grandmother's sort of travel to the real professionals.

I don't know how to finish this, except to say that I loved my grandmother and I miss her.  I expect I always will in some fashion.  About a week before she died, I was at work and had the opportunity to help a customer, a ninety-something year-old woman, by pushing her wheelchair/walker combo to her next destination, much as I have many times for Grandma R.  I talked to her about how she reminded me of my grandmother.  I meant to email Grandma and tell her this story.  I wish I had.  It would have been one more conversation with her, and they all count.

PROFILE of LILLIAN ROBINSON: ACADEMY PRESIDENT
American Academy of Psychoanalysis and Dynamic Psychiatry

Lillian Harris Robinson, the new President of the Academy, is a dignified, charming woman, a physician and activist in the true senses of both terms.
                                
Lillian was born in Oklahoma, the daughter of a physician father and a Shakespearean scholar and teacher mother.  Lillian was fascinated by her father's work as a physician and would occasionally accompany him on house calls. Many of Lillian's close relatives were members of the healing professions.

Stimulated by these early encounters, Lillian decided upon a career in medicine. At age 16 she entered the University of Oklahoma, where she was elected to Mortar Board and Phi Beta Kappa. She was graduated from Tulane Medical School, where she was elected to Alpha Omega Alpha.

Before entering Tulane, Lillian married Earl W. Robinson, himself an Oklahoman and the son of a physician. Earl joined Lillian at Tulane and both were graduated in the class of 1942.

After their internships, Earl was called to active army duty and Lillian began a residency in internal medicine. In 1944, she returned to Oklahoma, where she was joined by Earl after his stint in the Pacific.

Lillian began the hard, demanding life of a general practitioner in the small city of Enid. She soon became a mother and was faced with the great problems of all women physician mothers. There were three children. Lillian's two daughters are physicians. Christine is an anesthesiologist in private practice in the state of Washington, and Julia is a pediatrician currently working on an Indian reservation in South Dakota.  Now, there are also grandson Dana, age 5 and granddaughter Katy, age 3. Just a few months ago, Lillian learned downhill skiing in the company of her grandchildren, who began skiing at age 2.

While in Oklahoma, Lillian first demonstrated her inclination for vigorous and effective activism. She became a member of the House of Delegates of the Oklahoma State Medical Association and a member of the Oklahoma State Board of Medical Examiners, becoming Vice President of the Board in 1963.

In Enid, among the numerous facets of her medical practice, Lillian developed an interest in counseling.  Bolstered by this interest, and wishing to seek new horizons after many years in general practice, she decided to enter psychiatry. She became a resident in the Department of Psychiatry and Neurology at Tulane, completing the residency in 1966. She entered the Tulane Psychoanalytic Program while a resident, receiving her certificate in 1969. Lillian has remained in the Tulane Department of Psychiatry and Neurology ever since, rising to become a professor in 1977.

Because of her deep interest in children, Lillian expanded into child psychiatry, eventually becoming Director of Child Psychiatry at Tulane.  She is Board-certified in both adult and child psychiatry. Lillian's contributions to the medical literature have dealt primarily with applied psychoanalysis, particularly to problems of handicapped children.

Lillian continued her strong desire to serve the institutions in which she worked and, during her days at Tulane, was a member of the Admissions Committee and also served as Chairman of the General Medical Faculty. Besides her work in the Academy, she has been very active in psychiatric and medical affairs. Lillian has served as a member of the Executive Council and is Secretary of the Louisiana Psychiatric Association.  She has been a member of the Board of Directors of the Orleans Parish Medical Society and has served as President of the Louisiana Council of Child Psychiatry and The New Orleans Society for Adolescent Psychiatry.

Lillian's interest and service extend beyond psychiatry and medicine. She is interested in the human spirit and in religion as a manifestation of that spirit.  She is a member of the Vestry of her church and of the Executive Board of the Episcopal Diocese of Louisiana.

Lillian knows music and attends the concerts of the New Orleans Symphony and a chamber music series regularly.  She loves to swim, cook, and garden in the pleasant New Orleans home where she and Earl now live. Earl is Associate Director of the Department of Anesthesiology at Charity Hospital.

Lillian reads extensively. She really cares for people and has invited many to spend time at her home. She is energetic and without hesitation will travel across country to visit a daughter or across the ocean to see a new country. She is fearless and expresses her opinion without hesitation. Her integrity and honesty are well known.

Throughout her life, Lillian has identified herself with the constructive spiritual forces of society-those forces which strive to heal and elevate the individual. She now looks forward to serving the membership of the Academy.

Arthur W. Epstein, MD


PROFILE of LILLIAN ROBINSON: ACADEMY PRESIDENT, by Arthur W. Epstein, MD

published in
Academy Forum
American Academy of Psychoanalysis and Dynamic Psychiatry
Vol.27, no.3
Fall 1983



Chris and Julie my deepest sympathy for the loss of your mother.  I have many fond childhood memories of the many dinners we shared with your parents at the house in Algiers. Your mother was always so warm, had many stories and was a wonderful listener. She will be greatly missed.

Christine and Julia, I am one of the many cousins, Annie Harris Carter Morris' greatgrandaughter.  Lillian was such a precious encourager to me.  I loved her spirituality and her wonderful earthy pragmatism.  Elegant and salt of the earth, she was such a rich personality
I will miss not getting to talk to her through her emails. Thanks for posting the Holland piece, it does remind us none of our loved ones is far away, and all will be accessible in a little while. In the meantime, I can only imagine how much you will miss her. What a wonderful legacy of wisdom & caring she left you. If you are ever in San Antonio, I would love to get to know you too.  I'm sure the apples didn't fall far from the tree.

She was "Aunt Doc" to me, aunt, second mother and friend. We shared a deep love of chocolate. I will miss her every day.

Lillian was a healer, a teacher, and a devout Christian. I was privileged to know her.

Aunt Lillian is the mother I would have chosen had I not already had such a wonderful one. She will be deeply missed.


Lillian and I were resident's together. She was a very warm and caring person. She became a wonderful teacher and therapist. I mourn her leaving us.

Lillian was a dedicated child psychiatrist who was steadfast in her commitment to her profession , her students, and her patients.

Dr. Robinson was a wonderful mentor. She opened my eyes to the power of a mother's love.

Lillian will be mourned by many. Her work with residents and students at Tulane was done with passion and dedication.

The section of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at the Tulane University School of Medicine expresses sadness and condolences to Dr. Robinson's family. Dr. Robinson served as full-time faculty from 1967 to 1985, and as Section Chief from 1981 to 1985. Afterwards, she remained involved as Emeritus Professor.

LILLIAN H. ROBINSON

ROBINSON--Lillian H., M.D. The Trustees, Officers, and Members of the American Academy of Psychoanalysis and Dynamic Psychiatry express profound sorrow for the loss on March 19, 2012 of Dr. Lillian Robinson, a Past President of the Academy. To her family, our deepest sympathies. Cesar A. Alfonso, M.D., President, AAPDP

OBITUARY

Lillian H. Robinson M.D.

September 26, 1918 – March 19, 2012

Evergreen Washelli Funeral Home & Cemetery

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