Dr. Mendelsohn was my most severe critic and most helpful teacher during the eighteen months of weekly supervision I endured from him as I began my formal training as a psychiatrist at the Child Guidance Clinic of Washington University established by E. James Anthony with Brown Shoe endowments.  The Clinic and even its building were desecrated and razed by Chairman Sam Guze, but their memory lives on.  Roy would cancel a patient to attend his son's baseball game.  He loved both.   He declared that his mother had been his best training for his work.  His motto:  "Bring me a child tied to a stretcher, but the return visit is up to the child."

I was a social worker at Methodist Children’s Home from 1968 to 1970.  I had just received my MSW and I was very lucky to have Dr Mendelsohn as my consultant.  I consider it to be one of the most fortunate things to happen for me in my career development.   I guess I was thinking about those days today.  I was really happy that I could watch the memorial video.  I want to tell you how very lucky you were to be his family! I wish I could say thank you to Roy today.  This is the best I can do. 

Roy--
You made a significant contribution to my life- and changed my course to a very positive and productive outcome--
Something- you would be very happy to have seen---
Thank you --- for having the insight to change my course and save my life---
Miss you---
Neal

Roy's presence in the world was so valuable and his help so important to so many. We will remember him always for his emphasis on the need for play in our lives. Our condolences to his family.  John & Katie Linstead

Can anyone find the words to describe this man and the feelings he engendered?  After three days of struggle, I turned to my well-worn I Ching to read the hexagram Increase.  "The sacrifice of the higher element for the lower element is the only power that can save the world."  I saw Roy so willingly give of himself that there seemed no sacrifice in it.  I carry this lesson I learned from him on in his memory.

Dear Roy,

I have been, and always will be, grateful to you.  You saved me.  I could not look to myself for wholesome direction.  Not to my family history, not to generations past, not to my parents or grandparents for models.  

So you lent me yours.

There was your grandfather, whom you adored and carried with you in your heart your whole life.  There was that day you and he walked to your Bar Mitzvah in Chicago, his telling you, explaining all the while, what a great responsibility you'd be shouldering if you went through with this.  But he made it clear to you that the choice was yours.  

You spoke often of your children and grandchildren, how you enjoyed being with them, recounting your memories of them when they were little.  Some scary times as when Gail at 3 was perched high up on the roof.  There was the Catalpa tree, and your grandfather's bissien Schnapps.  And decades later you clowned around on the golf course, embarrassing your granddaughters. Your memories, Roy, were so vivid and so many.  I borrowed them until I could find, and look squarely at, my own. 

You loved words and language and you loved your enormous dictionary, Webster's International, Second Edition.  Sometimes, as we were talking, you'd ask "Shall I consult my friend?"  When I said, as I always did, "Yes!"  you'd roll your chair over to where it lay on the shelf.  You'd hoist it onto your lap and read the entry aloud.  This is how I learned the etymology of the word "patient".  Patient is from the Latin word to suffer.  The full import of that sank in slowly, but, as time went on, I realized that no matter which chair I was sitting in, whether in your office or in mine, no matter which chair i sat it, there were always two patients, two wounded people, in the room.

And I remember your irritation with your answering service when I told you once that I'd been trying to call you but that when the service insisted on knowing whether or not my call was an emergency and I couldn't honestly say that it was, because I'd just wanted to speak with you, you became furious with the service and explained that, as far as you were concerned, every attempt by one person to reach another was indeed an emergency.  Something in the person trying to connect was emerging, and was, therefore, and obviously, you said, an emergency.  
 . . . . . .
My thoughts and prayers are with you, Roy, and also with your wonderful family,

with love,

Anne

I worked in Dr. Roy Mendelsohn's office back in 1962-1973.He was a very special person, very kind and joyful. I enjoyed my work there so many years ago.  My deepest sympathy to Barie, Gail, Lynn and Mark and all the Mendelsohn family.
Lenore Molloy
St. Louis

Roy contributed so much to so many.  His presence and his work live on...

Our deep condolences to Roy's family...especially to Gail.

Roy was a great family friend and he made life fun. He taught me a love of baseball, bagels, and buffets!  As a young girl visiting my good friend Gail, he made me feel very welcome, cared for and safe. He and Alene were the best of friends to my parents and were challenging bridge partners! Together the foursome were sure they could solve all the worlds problems. I have always appreciated the role modeling of friendship and the opening of their home to others that Roy and Arlene provided.  His memory is a blessing.

OBITUARY

Roy Milton Mendelsohn

May 24, 1927 – June 30, 2015

Kriegshauser Mortuary-West Chapel

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