E.M. Strathie, longtime doctor in Bucks County

Elizabeth Mellott Strathie, 89, a family physician who cared for patients in Bucks County for 63 years, died of complications from a bacterial infection Nov. 7 at Pickering Manor, a retirement community in Newtown.

In 1940, Dr. Strathie became the first woman to open a medical practice in Newtown, then a village surrounded by farmland, Mayor Glenn Hains said. She shared the practice with her first husband, Richard Bond.

After she and Bond divorced, she maintained the practice. In the 1960s, she married James Strathie and moved her residence and office to a large Victorian building in Newtown. She and Strathie had two children before divorcing.

In addition to caring for her children and patients, Dr. Strathie cooked, hunted deer, sewed and embroidered, her son Thomas Bond said. She was assertive and outspoken, but was very kind to her patients, who called her Dr. Betty, he said.

She would have her groceries delivered and order an extra bag for a family, her son said. Often she accepted farm produce in lieu of a fee, he said, and once traded payment for medical services for driving lessons for her son. "It preserved the man's dignity and addressed her need," he said.

Dr. Strathie was one of the founding physicians of St. Mary's Medical Center in Langhorne.

In 2000, three years before she retired,  Mayor Hains declared a "Dr. Elizabeth M. Strathie Day" in Newtown.

"What I will personally remember about Dr. Betty," Hains said, "is her devotion to her medical practice and the loyalty of her patients to her."

Dr. Strathie graduated from Olney High School. She had a "brilliant, photographic memory" and never earned a bachelor's degree, her son said. Instead, her father, Lester, tutored her for the entrance exam to the Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine. Dr. Strathie's father, stepmother, Helen, and brother, James, were graduates of the school. She married Bond, another student, in 1939, a year before she graduated.

After her two divorces, Dr. Strathie was married for 20 years to Harry Yerkes. He died in 2003.

"She was sharp to the end," her son said. "She read four or five books a week and was conversant on international affairs." Since her retirement, he said, she studied painting and became an accomplished artist, working in watercolors and acrylics.

In addition to her son, Dr. Strathie is survived by another son, Gary; daughters Barbara Gallelli and Susan Mayne; 12 grandchildren; and 10 great-grandchildren.

A celebration of her life will begin at 11 a.m. next Friday at Newtown Presbyterian Church, 25 N. Chancellor St.

Memorial donations may be made to Pickering Manor, 226 N. Lincoln Ave., Newtown, Pa. 18940.