Morris Lyle Bartles

Abstract

Morris Lyle Battles, age 89, died Monday, August 30, 2004 at Westminster Thurber. He was born August 24, 1915 in Chesterland, Ohio, the son of Lyle H. and Belle (Burton) Battles. He was a 1933 graduate of Chester High School and a graduate of The Ohio State University, receiving his BA in 1938 and MD in 1941, at OSU he was a resident of the Buckeye Club (now Stadium Scholarship Dorms 1934–1936) and received Outstanding Alumni Award in 1988. Battles was a member of the Marching Band (TBDBTL) from 1934 to 1936, playing in the first Script Ohio; Kappa Kappa Psi Music Fraternity; Phi Chi Medical Fraternity, lifetime member of OSU Alumni Association and received its Citizenship Award in 1990. He served his internship at Huron Road Hospital in Cleveland in 1941 and 1942. He then went on to serve as a Flight Surgeon, Army Medical Corps from 1942 to 1946, stationed in Tunis, the Persian Gulf, and Casablanca with the North African Air Transport Command from 1944 to 1945 having the rank of Major. He was an Opthalmology resident I.O.P.H., Columbia University Medical Center, NYC from 1946 to 1949, Diplomate American Board Ophthalmology in 1950. He went into private practice in Ophthalmology from 1949 to 1983 and became the first Pediatric Ophthalmologist in Ohio in 1959. He was Chief of Ophthalmology Service at Children’s Hospital from 1953 to 1981 and Chairman of General Staff there in 1961 and 1962; a member of Senior Attending Staff of Grant Hospital from 1948 to 1983; Clinical Professor OSU College of Medicine, 1949 to 1983; and Professor Emeritus in 1983. In addition to numerous local, state, and national associations Battles was a longtime member of Downtown Lion’s Sightsaving Committee, the first chairman of Ohio Lions Research Foundation, Advisor to Delta Gamma Alumnae Visual Screening Project, and the Ohio Department of Special Education. In 1983, he was honored by Ohio State’s Department of Ophthalmology in naming its outstanding teacher award, the Makely—Battles Award. He was a member of the Faculty Club, Columbus Maennerchor, SAR, and First Families of Ohio. He was a founding member of the Lederhosen Five, a little German Band which entertained many for 32 years. In 1969 he served a 3-month assignment aboard the hospital ship HOPE in Tunis, Tunisia. A long-standing member of the First Congregational Church, Battles is preceded in death by his wife June. He is survived by his daughter, Susan (Franklin) Brown; son, Jim; granddaughter, Lisa (Scott) Cravens-Brown; grandson, Jacob Luther Adler; great grandchildren, Alden and Ethan.