Thursday, January 9, 2024 | 11:00 AM
Richard (Dick) Pfohl M.D. died peacefully at home in the early hours of 2025 at the age of 93. He was born June 10, 1931, to Anthony C. and Eleanor Rhomberg Pfohl, and raised in Dubuque, Iowa. The older brother to sisters Mary, Susan, and Ellen, all of whom predeceased him in recent years.
Upon graduating magna cum laude from hometown Loras College, Dick followed his physician father's footsteps, enrolling at the University of Iowa Medical School. Upon return visits to Dubuque, Dick's sister Ellen introduced him to her college classmate and best friend, Margaret Ann Small. A lifelong history buff, Dick courted Margaret at picnic excursions to historic sites surrounding Dubuque. He married Margaret in 1963, which he described as "the best thing that ever happened to me." Upon medical school graduation, Dick took his residency at the University of Minnesota and the Veterans Administration hospital in Minneapolis, and he and Margaret moved to a duplex a short stroll from Minnehaha Falls.
Following the arrival of the first of four children, they moved to the suburb of Edina in 1967 for the great public schools, which all four children attended. They lived in Edina for the remainder of Dick's life, making lifelong friends, becoming parishioners at Our Lady of Grace Catholic Church, and remaining active in the Twin Cities sports and cultural scenes -- among the very longest season ticket holders to the Guthrie Theater and Gophers football, as well as to the Vikings, North Stars and the Minnesota Orchestra. During the summers, they would often take the children on Sunday afternoons to picnic in Minnehaha Park, where Dick would grill brats and the family would take in the bluegrass festival or Svenskarnas Dag, and during the winter to the Minneapolis Institute of Art or the Walker Art Center, kindling a love of art in all four children which daughter Molly turned into a career.
Dick practiced internal medicine, specializing in diabetes and endocrinology, at the Nicollet Clinic, eventually serving as president and medical director, and its successor Park Nicollet, for nearly forty years, and was head of internal medicine at Eitel Hospital. He also served as a teaching practitioner at the University of Minnesota Medical School. Upon retirement, Dick continued to maintain his medical certification and to counsel patients, serving as a volunteer physician counselor to devote more time to patients to whom he patiently explained their diagnosis and treatment.
An avid reader and book collector, he never stopped learning. A lifelong astronomy buff, he took continuing education courses on the cosmos and other topics among his array of intellectual interests at the University of Minnesota and other senior learning centers. He remained active in retirement in retired physician's groups and military history roundtables. For fifty-five years, Dick loaded the family into the faux wood-paneled station wagon and its successors and drove them across Wisconsin to vacation with the extended families of his three sisters in an annual reunion at one of his favorite spots, on the shores of Lake Michigan in Door County, which forged lifelong bonds for subsequent generations of cousins.
Dick is survived by his wife of 61 years, Margaret, his children Richard (Jill Caskey), Molly (William Rand) Matthew (Melinda Nelson), and Peter (Maura Reidy), and his ten grandchildren, Ellie, Lizzy, Margaret, Lucy, Patrick, Megan, Kathryn, Amelia, Jack and Sally.
Visitation will begin at 10:00 AM, prior to the Mass of Christian Burial. Private Interment at Lakewood Cemetery. In lieu of flowers, memorials preferred to Park Nicollet Foundation or Doctors Without Borders.
