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Clifford J. Mullen
October 8, 1898 January 3 1986
The newcomers to this community have been deprived, by Doctor Mullen�s retirement in 1976, of knowing a delightful and unique physician. He was a very proper person, hospital staff president, county medical society president, Knight�s of Columbus, etc. But most of all he was Cliff Mullen, on occasion referred to as �Moon Mullen�.
This diminutive man, who was fiercely proud of his Irish ancestry, has been described by his peers as being a �fiesty [sic] little bantam rooster� and an �elf-like saint of a man�. Those who knew him better recall his unending loyalty to his family, his church, and his country. He carried into his professional life similar values. His warmth and generosity I have known personally. Having practiced in the same specialty and locality, I have also heard of it repeatedly from his former patients. He was associated for a number of years with the Union Pacific Railroad Hospital Association and I can tell you he has left a host of friends in the ranks of retired railroaders.
It is ironic that he spent his late years with severe visual impairment after having spent so much of his life helping others with their visual trouble.
The best observation of your colleagues is when one of them treats a member of your family. My first good look at Doctor Mullen was when I was an intern at the old St. Margaret�s Hospital. He treated my six year old son for an eye injury. It was then that I saw the love he had for children, the empathy he had for the mother and the deep appreciation he had for the family unit. He was a physician first, an ophthalmologist second.
Cliff was not all work and devotion. He found time in his busy life for recreation and time with his friends. He was an enthusiast of water birds and upland game hunting and the stories of him as scorekeeper in many a fierce golf match and as poker player at the medical society conventions are legend. He was small and quick and always appeared to be hurrying, but that impression was never so great as when you were in the back seat of his �Olds� as he attempted to make the first play or [sic] the out of town high school ball game, after a belated start because of a late patient.
The memory of this man leaves a smile on your face and a warm feeling in your heart. The highest compliment I can pay him is to say that he did it right. He kept the important things first, being a devoted husband and a loving father. God was part of his daily being and he passed this on to his family. From my vantage point he seemed to have taken the very important, the ordinary, and the incidental and blended them together in a very balanced and productive life. He has been missed during his disabled retirement and will be more so in his death.
Quentin C. Huerter
