In retirement, Dr. Joe Wilber moved to the North Georgia mountains where he thought he'd be content gardening, playing the piano and cooking.
That lasted all of three months.
Before long, the veteran public health physician began volunteering at HIV clinics in Dalton and elsewhere, centers he'd set up decades ago while overseeing the state infectious disease program.
In 2002, the Harvard Medical School alum helped found the Good Samaritan Health & Wellness Center in Jasper, a free clinic near his home on Tate Mountain. There, he volunteered several days a week, treating everything from diabetes to hypertension.
"The patients are very nice people with terrible bad luck," he told the Pickens County Progress last year. "All of them are poor, and they have no health insurance, no Medicare, no Medicaid, and a lot of them are out of work, so we supply everything."
Carole Maddux, executive director of Good Sam's, said he had a heart for patients and an amazing dedication to their well-being.
"He saw the whole person," she said.
In 2010, Dr. Wilber was diagnosed with Lou Gehrig's disease, but continued to work at Good Samaritan until December of that year. The 86-year-old doctor died Sunday at Hospice Atlanta from complications of the disease.
A memorial service will be held at 2 p.m. Sunday at The Carter Center; the Cremation Society of Georgia is in charge of arrangements.
Born in Rochester, N.Y., Dr. Wilber served in the Army during World War II and used the GI Bill to attend college. He graduated in 1952 with a medical degree from Harvard, where he met Dr. Patricia Bryan Wilber, his wife of 58 years.
After residencies at Boston City Hospital and Grady, he opened a local private practice in internal medical before embarking on a public health career. He started the nation's first public hypertension program and the state diabetes program. He ran programs for the state Division of Public Health to curb tuberculosis, sexual diseases, flu epidemics, rabies, meningitis, AIDS and food poisoning outbreaks.
"He wanted to work in public health," his wife said. "He liked that, and it was what he was interested in. He wanted to help as many people as he could."
In the early 1980s, while head of the state's infectious disease program, the physician tackled the emerging AIDS crisis. He set up HIV-clinics, lobbied for state money to treat people and had a hand in the creation of Jerusalem House, an AIDS hospice.
When he retired at 68, he talked about the need for more money to address AIDS.
"If we could reach the 40,000 who are infected [and don't know it], we could give them hope and support and help in how to love and not spread the disease," he told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution in 1993. "But they come in too late when they are dying."
Dr. Wilber served as president of the Georgia Heart Association and was a clinical associate professor of medicine at the Emory University School of Medicine. He was medical director of the Georgia International Life Insurance Company.
For a few years, the good doctor grew dozens of peppers. The hotter the better.
"He loved hot and spicy things," his wife said, "probably hotter than most people."
Additional survivors include sons, Joe Wilber, John Wilber and Bryan Wilber; a daughter, Dr. Martha Wilber; and seven grandchildren, all Atlantans.
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