Melvin Jackson Chisum Jr., 92, physician and teacher.

JACK CHISUM was a man of many and varied interests.

A highly regarded physician and teacher, he also plunged with his customary energy into music, wine, golf, travel and language.

If you fall in love with Paris, what's the next logical step? Why, to learn French, of course, which both he and his wife mastered at schools on the French Riviera and elsewhere in the country.

When Jack Chisum got interested in something, he went all out to make it part of his experience. That was the story of his long and eventful life.

Melvin Jackson Chisum Jr., called Jack by family and friends, an internist in private practice who finished his medical career as associate medical director at the old Bell Telephone Co., died Wednesday. He was 92 and living in a nursing home in Oklahoma but previously had lived in East Falls.

Jack was an Army veteran of World War II. He served as a chief warrant officer in the South Pacific with the 492nd Quartermaster Battalion.

"He didn't shoot anybody, but people shot at him," said his wife, the former Gloria Twine.

He had a few close calls as his unit traveled with the combat troops as they advanced up the Pacific islands on the way to Japan.

There was the time he decided to take a dip in the Pacific off Leyte Gulf in the Philippines when a Japanese Zero plane appeared.

"He said he ducked under the water until the Zero left," his wife said. "He said he stayed under the water so long that the Zero was probably back in Tokyo before he dared to come up."

Jack was born in Philadelphia to Melvin J. Chisum and the former Eliza Ann Venable. He spent his early years in Philadelphia, Washington, D.C., and Glencoe, Ill., where he started school. The family lived in Los Angeles for a time while Melvin Sr. worked for the African-American newspaper the California Eagle.

Back in Philly, Jack attended Martha Washington Elementary School, Sulzberger Junior High and Central High before going on to the University of Pennsylvania, from which he graduated as Phi Beta Kappa in 1943. He was accepted by the Harvard University Law School, but the war intervened.

It was while serving in the South Pacific that Jack changed his mind about law and decided he wanted to be a doctor.

"He met some medical officers in the Army," his wife said, "and they influenced his decision."

After his discharge, Jack enrolled at the University of Pennsylvania Medical School and graduated in 1952.

He did his internship at Lincoln Hospital in New York City, then returned to Philadelphia and established a private practice. He made house calls and mostly served the West Philadelphia community.

In 1962, he closed his practice and began a three-year internal-medicine residency at the old Philadelphia General Hospital. He opened an office at Broad and Vine streets as an internist with a subspecialty in arthritis and rheumatology.

Jack was a mentor in the Sigma Pi Phi Mentoring Program at Girard College, where he lent his life's experience to counsel the students.

He met his future wife, Gloria Twine, at Penn, where she was a graduate student in psychology. They were married in Gloria's hometown of Muskogee, Okla., on Sept. 10, 1955.

Jack was big music aficionado. His family said he was probably Duke Ellington's greatest fan, but had an extensive collection of CDs and records of many other artists.

He made a study of wine, joined wine clubs and mastered the subtleties of the fruit of the grape.

Jack was dedicated to mastering golf. He and some buddies played every week, and he took his clubs on trips to Mexico and Los Angeles. However, he would not play if the temperature dipped lower than 50 degrees.

Also a devoted traveler, Jack and his wife visited every continent but Antarctica.

Besides his wife, he is survived by a sister, Anne E. Johnson.

Services: Memorial service 11 a.m. Saturday at Camphor Memorial United Methodist Church, 5620 Wyalusing Ave. Interment will be private.

Donations in his memory may be made to Doctors Without Borders, 333 7th Ave., New York, NY 10001, or the Southern Poverty Law Center, 400 Washington Ave., Montgomery, AL 36104.