THE OGDEN STANDARD-EXAMINER A7 OGDEN, UTAH, SUNDAY MORNING, SEPTEMBER 16, 1956 Millionaire’s Life Seemed Full, Until-- By BERNARD DIEDRICH DESCHAPELLES, Haiti (AP) The full happy life of a well-mannered millionaire was beginning to unfold for William Larimer Mellon Jr. in 1947. Scion of the Pittsburgh Mellons and grand nephew of tycoon Andrew W. Mellon, young Mellon, at 37, already had retired - from whatever it is that millionaires retire - to his new house and ranch in Arizona with his wife and children. The house was exquisite; the scenery goregous. Life opened like a flower, and young Mellon calmy plucked it for his well-tailored lapl. What more could a man ask? Home, family, money in the bank, banks in the family. Then one day the lounging millionaire chanced to flip through a picture magazine and came across an article on the work of Dr. Albert Schweitzer in the jungles of Africa. BRILLIANT CAREER Here was another man who had retired - retired from a brilliant career as a theologian, organist, teacher and musicologist to become a doctor and devote his life to the African natives. From that day on, Larry Mellon was never the same. The flower of luxury shriveled and died on the rocks of his new ambition. Mellon was consumed with a passion to serve life rather than constantly call on it for room service. At an age when most millionaires are trading in their polo ponies for racing stables, Mellon, who had quit Princeton in his freshman year, went back to school to begin the long preparation for the new days ahead. Seven years later he emerged from Tulane University Medical School in New Orleans as Dr. William Larimer Mellon Jr., devoted disciple of Dr. Albert Schweitzer. NEXT STEP INEVITABLE The man in the smoking jacket had become the man in the white coat. For Mellon, the next step was inevitable. With his wife, the former Gwen Grant, whose family established the Philanthropic Grant Foundation, he had visited Haiti in 1952 (Editor’s note: A passing glance at a magazine article on Dr. Albert Schweitzer’s work in Africa turned William Larimer Mellon, scion of the Mellon millions, into a humanitarian. At the age of 37, Mellon went back to school, became a doctor and emulated his new-found idol by building and operating a hospital in the wilds of Haiti). To gather material for his doctor’s dissertation on “tropical ulcers.” The paper was well received by the examining board. Like most dissertations, it was probably forgotten. But Mellon never forgot his trip to Haiti, the poverty, the helplessness, the physical miseries of the rural population. In the broad, sloping Artibonite Valley at Deschapelles, Dr. Mellon built the Albert Schweitzer Memorial Hospital, a 2-million-dollar, 50-bed hospital in one of the poorest and most thickly populated areas in the Western hemisphere. On his 46th birthday last June 26, two years after construction began under the direction of architect Robert Law, Dr. Mellon quietly opened the doors of his cyclone and earthquake proof structure to begin carrying his belatedly discovered life n sion. But the doors did not swing open to everyone. To avoid being swamped with applications from all over the island, Dr. Mellon had to limit his facilities to treating the 50,000 natives who lived near by. He mapped out a 400-acre hospital district. Those outside the perimeter must use the dispensary-hospitals run by Eubank INSURANCE 443 27th STREET PHONE 7785 the government and board of health. Dr. Mellon built his modern, air conditioned hospital, complete with three operating rooms, X-ray facilities, laboratories, dental clinic and morgue, on a 100-acre tract granted by the government. Annual upkeep runs to about $200,000. Another 100-acre government grant provided farmland for the institution to raise its own food. The Grant Foundation donated 11 staff bungalows, originally built for a banana plantation. STILL DOES DIAGNOSIS Four American physicians, all specialists, two laboratory technicians and four nurses, in addition to a Haitian dentist and other trained native personnel, assist Dr. Mellon, who acts as director but still does most of the diagnosis. Mrs. Mellon presides at the reception desk. Ian, Michael and Rosane, children of Mrs. Mellon’s first marriage, collect the two gourdes (about 40 cents. Registration fee and advise patients that one one gourd will be required by the next visits. Outpatients can buy medicine at cost. Less than 10 years after the dream first possessed him, Larry Mellon, scion of the Mellon millions, is hard at work devoting his life to the humble peasants who eke out an existence in the rice paddies and on the small farms along the great Artibonite River. Only one thing remains and that already is taking form. A monument to Dr. Albert Schweitzer will soon rise near the floodlit fountain on the tropical-lush hospital grounds.