Services and a celebration of life are set for Dr. Lawrence Eugene “Joe” Maurer, a Boulder medical pioneer who died recently at his home at the age of 103.
Maurer, who died Jan. 24, was best known as a co-founder, along with nine other physicians, of the Boulder Medical Center in 1949, which stands to this day at its original location at Broadway and Alpine Street and has expanded to three other locations in the county.
Born in Goshen, Ind., in 1914, Maurer attended Goshen College, graduated from the University of Indiana Medical School in 1939 and completed his medical internship in Denver and Kansas City.
He came to Boulder in 1942 to join the practice of Dr. H. H. Heuston at a salary of $100 a month.
According to Boulder historian Silvia Pettem, Maurer arrived in a community of about 12,000 people that was not too far removed from the days of “horse and buggy” doctors who traveled the county delivering babies, treating infectious diseases and setting broken bones.
It was a time of transition locally and in the medical community at large, and doctors with established practices saw a benefit to teaming with younger physicians to the advantage of both generations of medical practitioners.
Maurer was one of three physicians who initially teamed up with two more senior partners to form the Boulder Medical Group. As that team soon found that their practice was outgrowing a two-man office, they linked with a second group of doctors inhabiting a remodeled house on Spruce Street, and in 1948 they began a series of weekly meetings to plot a mutually beneficial solution.
According to report of those discussions made public years later by one of the doctors, their sessions focused more than a little on their social aspect, “in which various attitudes of the members were converted into ones of friendship, cooperation, confidence and trust in one another.”
The doctors eventually formed their own corporation and bought a 2½-acre site at 2750 Broadway, directly across the street from Boulder Community Hospital. Maurer was the last surviving member of the team that launched the Boulder Medical Center in 1949.
“This was quite revolutionary at the time because nobody was really developing medical groups; doctors were typically in private practice on their own,” Boulder Medical Center pediatrician Dr. Stephen Fries said in an emailed statement. He practiced with Maurer for more than 20 years in the medical center’s pediatrics department.
“The doctors felt that giving care in a group setting was better because they would be able to rely on each other for consulting and collaboration; they felt like it was a better model of care.”
He added: “Dr. Maurer was always known to be an innovator — he gave the first dose of penicillin in town, and he and the group did a lot of things that were at the forefront of medicine.”
Paid with terrier puppy
Maurer was trained as a pediatrician and delivered more than 2,500 babies, including two of his own children. According to an obituary prepared by family members, there’s a good chance babies born in Boulder in last century’s middle decades were welcomed into the world by Maurer.
In one year alone, Fries said, Maurer delivered more than 400 babies.
Boulder resident Charlie Danaher was a longtime friend who became acquainted with Maurer through the Torch Club of Boulder, where professionals from many fields share fellowship and experiences drawn from their careers.
“One little tidbit I remember, he was telling us one time about someone who he was working on who had a very badly broken ankle, or foot, and he said, ‘We just got it turned around, so it was looking like a foot again.’ That’s how he would talk,” Danaher recalled.
Danaher also recounted hearing Maurer discuss caring for patients who had no ability to pay, saying, “They would just throw that invoice in the trash; they weren’t going to collect from that particular family.”
In treating a patient and good friend who was suffering from spinal meningitis, Maurer learned while attending a medical seminar at Fitzsimmons Army Medical Center in Aurora of a drug new at the time: penicillin. He became the first physician to administer the medicine in Boulder County, and his patient survived.
In a reminiscence about his friend’s career authored for the Camera on the occasion of his turning 100, Danaher wrote about the era when “Doc Joe” opened his own practice on the top floor of the First National Bank building at Pearl Street and Broadway, sometimes making more than a dozen house calls in a day.
“Helen served as his secretary, and while out he’d call home to learn where his next stop was,” Danaher wrote, referring to Maurer’s wife.
“Back in those days, people bartered for services and Joe often got paid in the form of a chicken, eggs or vegetables. Out on one call, the Maurer family scored a terrier puppy.”
Maurer told Pettem, in 2013, “Most of the time, I just held the patients’ hands and told them they’d be all right,” noting his opinion that today’s doctors didn’t spend enough time talking with their patients.
Longtime Boulder High team doctor
Maurer was preceded in death by sister Carol Maurer, his wife, Helen (Faris) Maurer, and his first grandchild, Molly Marie Maurer.
He is survived by his four children, Larry and wife Linda of Nederland, Mary Lynne Cameron and husband Mike of Boulder, Chris Maurer of Boulder, and Anne Dietz and husband Bob of Boulder.
Additional survivors are six grandchildren, Katie Cameron, Michael Cameron, and wife Beverly, Bridget Heitz and husband Karl, Kristen Dietz, Elizabeth Ann Dietz, Kimberly Sauber and husband Luke, and three great grandchildren, Kenzie and Hutton Cameron and Emmit Sauber.
A service is scheduled for 1:30 p.m. Feb. 17 at Sacred Heart of Jesus Church, 1318 Mapleton Ave., Boulder, with a celebration of life to follow at Boulder Country Club, 7350 Clubhouse Road, Boulder.
In lieu of flowers, Maurer’s family asks that contributions in his name be made to one of the following organizations: The Boulder Day Nursery Association, Children’s Hospital Colorado Foundation, or the Boulder High School Athletic Department.
He had served as the Boulder High School team doctor for 25 years.
Danaher said he last visited with Maurer several months ago.
“He was in good spirits,” Danaher recalled. “He would say, ‘I’m just so tired.’ But he was very coherent. We rode his elevator in his house. He wanted to show that off to my kids. It was a very interactive meeting.”
Summing up his career to Pettem when he was 98, Maurer said, “It just made me feel good to be able to help people.”
Charlie Brennan: 303-473-1327, brennanc@dailycamera.com or twitter.com/chasbrennan
Charlie Brennan
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