BOB ALLISON, MD
Happy, with apologies to Rodgers and Hammerstein's Sound of Music, “How do you hold a ‘sunbeam’ in your hand?”
I met George Hurt poolside at a Phi Chi rush party, September 1953, just prior to entry into the freshman class at Southwestern Medical School. We pledged Phi Beta Pi. He organized our anatomy table—six students to a cadaver in the shacks on Oak Lawn Avenue. It was a macabre scene: 18 bodies and 100+ students in a relatively small space with no air-conditioning! This was Dr. Hal Weathersby's first year at Southwestern.
George was one of the smartest people I've ever known, if not the smartest. He was academically number one in our medical school class. He was five average points ahead of the next classmate. The next 20 guys were within two average points of each other. He was the obvious choice for the Ho Din award of the class. We had a great time in medical school, playing widow whist or ping-pong at lunch the first 2 years. Ann and George married after our freshman year. Happy drove a yellow cab that summer. Catherine was born our senior year. We topped off the fourth year by wearing our tuxes with short pants with long white socks to the spring formal at the Dallas Country Club.
George completed his urology training at Parkland Memorial Hospital with Dr. Harry Spence. He joined the firm of Alexander, King, Fuqua, and Ware in Dallas. Happy did a lot of things for a lot of people, most of which he took little or no credit for. George founded the urology clinic for spina bifida patients at Texas Scottish Rite Hospital and served as director of the clinic for 40 years.
He really helped a lot of friends and acquaintances down on their luck as well as visiting national and international professors and others. I once sent one of the principals of Texas Instruments to see Happy as a work-in without calling ahead; George questioned my judgment. I told him it did not make any difference. He treated all patients the same, rich or poor, famous or infamous.
George was honored as a Distinguished Alumnus at both Highland Park High School and Southern Methodist University. His senior year in high school, he was recognized as the best all-around athlete, lettering in football, basketball, and baseball.
Happy always had time for his children: coaching Y teams, going horseback riding, skiing, going on hunting and fishing trips and multiple trips in and out of the USA.
I can never adequately express my admiration for the care Ann provided Happy during the years of his very protracted illness.
I may not be able to hold a sunbeam in my fingers, but I can in my heart.
CATHERINE HURT SCHEIHING
You can read about my father's many honors and accolades, but the true essence of this amazing man was much more than a title. Daddy was a brilliant man with the heart of a child. That translated into incredible adventures for us, his kids. He was always laughing and thinking of crazy fun stuff. The list of our activities—like helicopter rides, horses in our front yard, river rafting, and so much more—reads like an adventure series.
Family road trips in the station wagon were a vacation staple. The Hurts traveled to both coasts, more than once, plus a couple of times to Canada, south into Mexico, and everywhere in between. Daddy was happiest behind the wheel, in control, going 80 miles an hour, faster if Mother wasn't looking.
Every winter there were road trips to Colorado. He was the most beautiful skier I have ever seen. You could spot him from far away gliding like an angel down the black slopes. He proudly skied until his late 60s, finally qualifying for a free senior lift pass. Most of the time you could find Daddy on the bunny slopes, always helping whomever was the youngest at that time—since you never knew when another Hurt kid would enter this world.
One summer Daddy called one of his famous family meetings. With great joy, we felt certain that all the begging for a swimming pool had come to fruition. Instead we were stunned to find out that instead of a pool, we were getting a new baby brother. Hello Gregory, good-bye swimming pool.
All of these multiple car trips made for terrific memories, tremendous family times, outrageous laughter, singing, story telling, and catching Daddy's contagious thirst for learning and seeing all there was to our wonderful nation. On one trip after many battlefield visits and historical sites, Daddy instilled such a powerful reverence for our country that Doug and I are saluting in every photo from that trip.
Daddy also traveled around the globe. For many of the years, Mama stayed home with “the baby,” whoever that was at the time. Daddy almost always took one or two or even three of us with him on his travels. Eventually even Mama joined in on the adventures. Once Daddy crossed the border leaving Texas, his cowboy hat was on his head and his boots on his feet. He was so proud to be a Texan.
Carolyn went with him to Red China as it first began to open its borders to Americans. He took the boys to Africa; all of us went to Europe, many times. We went to Israel, too. Other travels included India, Saudi Arabia, South America, Australia, and countless other places.
The language barrier was never a problem for Daddy. He had his own universal language. Daddy would smile from ear to ear and give a Tootsie Pop. In Kazakhstan, on the far eastern side of what was then the Soviet Union, Daddy was the first American most of the people there had ever seen. They were terribly afraid of him at first, but Daddy's sincerity, smile, and Tootsie Pop language won their hearts.
Once I witnessed this myself. We were driving through Yugoslavia just when Eastern Europe had begun to allow a few people in. We were on a one-lane road barely passing ox-pulled carts. We saw a group of children and their mothers in the field harvesting their wheat with scythes. Daddy stopped the car, hopped out, gave a loud whistle, and the curious folks walked over. When the mothers saw his smile and the Tootsie Pops Daddy was holding high in the air, they gave a nod and the children rushed forward laughing and smiling. Tootsie Pops for everyone!
Daddy was magical with children. He was the kind of person that sat on a bench at a park and before you knew it, little children had gathered around him. He took our entire neighborhood on bike rides; I'm talking 20 to 25 kids on bikes and one adult, Daddy. The youngest would be sitting in the front basket of his bike. Our doorbell would ring, and when we answered we were likely to hear, “Can Dr. Hurt come out and play?”
Daddy coached every sport offered at the YMCA to every age group imaginable. He loved every second of it. I remember when he first started coaching Ellison's soccer team. None of the parents even knew the rules of soccer at the time, so volunteers were few. Daddy went into coaching soccer full steam ahead, just like all the other sports. He just loved being with his kids and their friends.
At my wedding, the overwhelming memory most people have is that we had an ice cream Sundae bar. Why? Because my dad said, “I don't like to eat cake without ice cream.” Dad proved that a human could live on coffee, Diet Dr. Pepper, and Bluebell ice cream.
Daddy really lived. He burned the candle at both ends. Daddy worked long, hard hours, but when he got home, he would go to the front porch and whistle. The Hurt kids would come running, along with a few other neighbors. Once Daddy was home, he was all ours. The fun had arrived!
One year in high school, the school phone book came out. There was an ad in it that read simply, “No phone calls after 9:00 PM. Dad.” I was mortified and went straight home and demanded to know if he had put that ad in the phone book. Daddy looked at me puzzled. His answer? “How did you know?”
Daddy liked to go to bed by 9:00 PM. That rarely happened, but that was always his plan. He was up and gone by 4:30, 5:00 at the latest. His rounds were done by 6:00 AM and then surgery started. By mid morning he was in the office seeing patients.
Every Tuesday afternoon was Daddy's time off. Instead of taking the time off, this was his day to work at the Texas Scottish Rite Hospital and later the hospital's Spina Bifida Clinic that he founded. It was a labor of love. He loved on all those special kids, and they loved him back. Those donated afternoons gave him countless wealth in his heart. He showed us how to be generous with our time in helping others.
So many people I know and have met have wonderful stories about how Daddy saved their life or changed their life for the better. He was a true physician. He cared tremendously about his patients. The time and concern he gave each one was genuine.
Daddy loved people—all people, every kind of person imaginable. He had the uncanny gift to make each person feel as if he or she mattered. Indeed, each person did matter to Daddy.
Daddy loved his children and grandchildren. Most of all he loved Mama. It was a joy to see Daddy come home and grab Mama in a bear hug and tell her he loved her. Then Mama would shake her head and say, “Oh Happy!” It made us all laugh.
Daddy was passionate about many things. He showed us by the way he lived that love of family mattered. He showed us to love the Lord with all your heart. He showed us that love of country and the great state of Texas should be ingrained. Do your best. Never stop trying. Do what is right. Forgive. Find the best in all people. Friends are a blessing and a joy.
Daddy told us often that family is enormously important. You stick together. Family is whom you can count on. Never let anything come between us brothers and sisters. I guess somehow that got through to us. My younger brothers and sister and I have muddled through all these years, sticking together and loving each other as Daddy taught us. I can't say it was always easy; we are so different. But to this day we remain very close. I am proud to have passed that belief on to my own children, who are each other's best friends.
The stories about Daddy are countless, incredible, crazy, hilarious, and all true. I imagine all those who knew him have their own encyclopedia of hair-raising tales about or including Happy Hurt. I know I do. If I told even a small amount, we'd be laughing, we'd be crying. And we would still be here when the sun came up. I know that Daddy would say to each of you here: You matter so much to me. I love you. Now go out and love others. Laugh and take a handful of Tootsie Pops with you to share.
WILLIAM C. ROBERTS, MD
I was fortunate at Southern Methodist University to be a classmate and fraternity brother of George Hurt. I knew no one when arriving in Dallas, but George and his friends rapidly took me in. A trip to Mexico with George and several others and then a visit to his family's ranch remain vivid in my mind all the years since. The more I learned about George, the more I was awed by him. I heard that he had never made less than an A through junior high and high school, and he never made less than an A in college either, going to medical school after 3 years. George, I believe, could walk out of a class and quote the lecture he had just heard, and read a page and recite it. He certainly had one of the most brilliant minds that I have encountered. Additionally, George was a wonderful athlete. You name the sport and he was good at it. And all the time he was friendly, fun, humble, and modest. His nickname “Happy” was most appropriate. George, you were special and you will be missed.