By Elizabeth Cook
ecook@salisburypost.com
Standing 6-foot-3, Joe Corpening towered over the infants and children he treated at the Salisbury Children’s Clinic.
But friends and family who gather for his memorial service today probably will remember how those young patients loomed large in Corpening’s life.
In his whole family’s life, in fact.
Wife Jean recalls a night when Corpening rushed off to meet a patient at the emergency room at 3 a.m., assuring the worried mother on the phone ó much to Jean’s surprise ó that Jean would take care of the woman’s other children.
“He was just that way,” Jean says. “Whatever the children needed.”
Corpening died at his home Saturday after battling a progressive neurological disorder for several years. He was 84.
Those who knew him say Corpening had a passion for everything he did ó whether he was practicing medicine, playing tennis or cheering for the UNC Tar Heels.
The Corpenings met at Duke University while he, the son of a doctor, was in medical school. He had earned his undergraduate degree at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Five brothers would do the same.
“He is probably Carolina’s No. 1 fan,” Jean says.
The desire to be midway between Chapel Hill and his hometown of Granite Falls drew them to Salisbury, she says. He liked the size of the town and the caliber of the hospital, Rowan Memorial.
Starting in 1955, Corpening ran a solo practice for seven years out of a little office on Barker Street. As a pediatrician, he was among the first specialists in Salisbury, and acceptance in the medical community came slowly. General practitioners treated the babies they delivered.
Still, the patients came, and their need for attention did not stop at 5 p.m. or on the weekends. The work was demanding ó “24/7,” Jean says.
“About his second year in practice, he had the flu three times,” she says. “Patients would be calling and even knocking on our door.”
Referrals came more frequently after obstetrician Dr. Paul Green started the Salisbury Women’s Clinic in 1958.
“Joe was a tired man when I got here,” says Dr. Bob Tannehill, who joined the practice in 1962.
“Joe was a very good associate,” Tannehill says. “He worked hard. He was very careful ó a very good doctor.”
Other pediatricians joined the practice over the next several years ó Tom Carlton, who had grown up in Salisbury, Wayne Koontz, Fred Bachl ó and the new Children’s Clinic building on Grove Street bustled.
The indefatigable Corpening set the tone.
“He was very intent on doing the right thing,” Carlton says. Corpening followed changes in treatment and technology and attended conferences.
“He just sort of encouraged a high level of practice and a high level of care for the children he saw,” Carlton says.
Corpening became known for his diagnostic skills. Wife Jean says he came through medical school at a time when Duke stressed physical diagnosis ó giving thorough examinations. There were few exotic tests to determine what might be wrong with an ailing child.
Dolores Kinley ó who went to work for Corpening as an assistant in his solo days and still works for Salisbury Pediatrics ó said doctors sent patients from Lexington, Mocksville and Cooleemee to Corpening for a diagnosis.
“He was so very thorough,” she says. Once he felt a lump in the abdomen of a child who came in for a checkup, she says. He caught the tumor early enough that the child is now a man.
“He wanted everything done the very right way,” she says, and would let someone know if it wasn’t. “He was red-headed, and he wasn’t red-headed for nothing.”
But patients always came first.
In the 1950s, if a newborn had jaundice or an incompatible blood type, the infant underwent a blood exchange that could last hours, Kinsey said. Corpening always wanted to see the process through. “He would sit by that baby’s bed all night.”
And be at work the next morning.
“There’s not another one like him,” Kinsey says. “He built that clinic. He didn’t walk into a ready-made practice.”
Corpening believed pediatrics was best field of medicine. “I’ve always loved children, and taking care of them is a happy practice,” he said when he retired in 1999.
Beyond the clinic, Corpening made his mark in Salisbury on the tennis court. He picked up the sport when he was 31, at a time when the city had no municipal tennis courts and the Country Club’s old clay courts were in bad shape. He helped push for improvements in both areas and honed his skills.
“Every game you played, he liked to get better,” recalls Reid Leonard, who often played with him.
Corpening won the city championship in the early 1970s and went on to compete on the state and regional level. And when rain and cold weather prevented him from playing one time too many, he built an indoor court on Old Mocksville Road.
“Joe was a guy with a lot of spirit,” Leonard says, “with his tennis, his Tar Heels, with life itself.”
Leonard said when he went to football games in Chapel Hill with Corpening, “he let them know he was there.”
He remembers a close game against William and Mary back when Bill Dooley coached UNC. With three minutes to go, William and Mary had an opportunity to score on a third down, and the Tar Heel fans fell silent as they waited for the play.
Suddenly out of the crowd came a voice right next to Leonard.
“Dooley, Dooley,” Corpening yelled to the coach. “He’s going to throw the ball over Angelo’s head.”
Sure enough, that’s what happened, and William and Mary scored.
Corpening’s voice rose from the quiet Tar Heel stands again, according to Leonard. “Dooley, Dooley, I’ll never forgive you!”
Carolina managed to score again and win the game. “And Joe forgave him right quick,” Leonard says.
Corpening retired when he was 75 and, even after the neurological disorder set in, stayed active as long as he could. He weakened as the months went by, but remained optimistic that he could get better.
After one bout of pneumonia, he was able to get on his feet again and “unbeknownst to me made a tennis date with one of his buddies,” his wife says.
She objected, but he said his friend was expecting him. She went along, standing behind him on the court to make sure he didn’t fall. The men played briefly, then sat and talked for a while.
That was about two months ago.
The disorder affected his ability to swallow, speak and walk, and he chose not to prolong his life by being fed through a tube, Jean says.
“We both early on had said we did not want extensive life support,” she said.
Though he lost more than 70 pounds, she says, he was alert and engaged to the very end ó offering medical advice to a friend who called her and giving Bob Tannehill a vigorous handshake just two days before he died.
“He knew what the situation was,” Jean said. “He told the doctor he guessed he was pretty lucky to be 84.”
He died peacefully at home.
“It’s been a full life,” Jean says, adding that an amazing number of former patients have sent her notes with stories of how he cared for them.
“He was devoted to his practice and very passionate about everything he did,” Jean says. “There were no halfway measures.”