Adolph W. Vogel, 89, ophthalmologist

Adolph W. Vogel, 89, an ophthalmologist who practiced from his residence in Glenolden for 20 years, died at home Saturday, Dec. 4, of heart failure.

Dr. Vogel opened his practice in 1970 and retired in 1990.

In 1974, he spent just over a year in a city in north-central Pakistan, where he performed cataract surgery as part of a British volunteer mission, said his brother William W. Vogel, a retired Montgomery County Court judge. Dr. Vogel told family members that the angle of the sun there caused severe eye problems for people, according to his brother.

During another yearlong trip, Dr. Vogel traveled with Milo H. Fritz, an ophthalmologist and researcher, by plane in Alaska to treat indigenous Indians, his brother said. "He flew all over Alaska on those polar jumpers," the judge recalled.

Dr. Vogel, who was known as "Whitten" to his friends, was born in Cincinnati in 1921, and moved with his family to Merion so that his father, the cellist Adolph Vogel, could join the Philadelphia Orchestra.

Dr. Vogel graduated from Lower Merion High School in 1939 and from the University of Pennsylvania in 1942. He earned his medical degree with a specialty in ophthalmology at Penn in 1945.

Dr. Vogel spent two years in the Army Medical Corps and was discharged as a captain in 1947. He interned in Lancaster and served a residency at Duke University Medical Center.

During his early years as a doctor, he worked in the research departments of Lederle Laboratories and Merck & Co., and then at Wills Eye Hospital.

In 1970, he married Louise Turner, whom he met at a gathering of mutual friends.

Dr. Vogel was a longtime subscriber to the orchestra. "He loved music. He loved the orchestra," William Vogel said.

He enjoyed summers at his farm in Franklin, N.Y., because he could swim in its two ponds, mow the grass, and sit on the porch and read.

Dr. Vogel liked to joke: "How do you spell farm? W-O-R-K," his brother recalled.

In addition to his wife and his brother, Dr. Vogel is survived by another brother, John. A sister, Linda Vogel Corlette, died in 1987.

A funeral will be at 11 a.m. Thursday, Dec. 9, at First Presbyterian Church, 21st and Walnut Streets. Burial will be in Arlington Cemetery, Drexel Hill.