It started when an FBI agent came to Goodman Espy’s south Alabama school.
The visitor was recruiting for the Bureau. The 16-year-old’s imagination was fired up — so much so that he hitchhiked to Washington, D.C., found FBI headquarters and fast-talked his way into Director J. Edgar Hoover’s outer office.
“He told Hoover’s secretary ‘A man came to my school and said they were looking for [FBI] guys, and I’m your guy,’” said his daughter Brittany.
No, he didn’t get into Hoover’s inner office that day. And, he was subsequently rejected when he applied through more conventional channels.
But that incident speaks volumes about Espy’s emotional superstructure.
“Something would grab his attention, and he’d just be tenacious and not let go,” said his brother Dr. Paul Espy.
A desire to serve coupled with the ability to thrive on challenges and overcome obstacles took Espy from rural Alabama poverty to a busy, built-from-scratch OB-GYN practice in Marietta. What he didn’t leave behind in Alabama, said friends and family, was his deep Christian faith, which fueled a lifelong drive to help to those who were struggling or underserved.
“He was all things to all people,” is how longtime friend and Georgia Congressman Rich McCormick put it.
Goodman Basil “G.B” Espy III, a revered doctor, worldwide medical and humanitarian missionary and benefactor, marathon runner and owner of large sports memorabilia collection, died Nov. 7 at age 89. He’s survived by his daughters Margaux Hockin and Brittany Ward and their partners, his brothers Dr. Paul Espy and Ike Espy, grandchildren and others.
Thumbing a ride to the FBI’s nerve center was far from the last time Espy put the rubber to the road.
“When the earthquake happened in Haiti [in 2010] he was on a plane as soon as he could go,” said Paul Espy.
McCormick went along. Then a medical student at Morehouse College, he traveled with a team of doctors, working with Espy in delivering babies and doing surgeries in grim conditions. Years before, Espy had mounted a similar expedition to war-torn Kosovo, a country in southeastern Europe.
“He was all over the world investing in others,” McCormick said.
When a Christian missionary friend told him about a 6-year-old Kurdish boy who was not able to walk because one leg was shorter than the other from an infection, Espy arranged for the youngster’s journey to Marietta, where a surgeon did a complex surgery to fix the issue.
Espy sent medical equipment and supplies to treat breast cancer patients in a portion of the Middle East where the 5-year survival rate for the disease was zero. It was one of a number of overseas deliveries and missions. Africa, Haiti and Southeast Asia were among the stops he made.
At home, the practice he created thrived. By one estimate, he delivered nearly 20,000 babies before retiring — reluctantly — at age 80.
New patients would get a personal note thanking them for allowing him the privilege of participating in their care. Some of those patients became fast friends. He mandated similar customer service policies for office staff.
Family and friends said that a sometimes grueling residency at a New Orleans hospital bred Espy’s ability to do intricate surgeries using techniques that others in his field shied away from.
“He was adept at difficult deliveries,” said Paul Espy, using forceps in birth situations where his colleagues would likely default to cesarian sections, fearful of both medical and legal complications. And if patients couldn’t pay, he was known to treat them anyhow.
Facing challenges and striving to make the world better were equal hallmarks of Espy’s time away from the operating and examining room.
Checking into a hotel on one occasion, he noticed the desk clerk had dental issues and was seemingly uncomfortable and standoffish about it. The next day, he sent a note to her boss, asking him to send her to the dentist and adding that he’d pay the bill.
Family member Isaac Espy recalls his uncle challenging him on two fronts, encouraging him to get his doctorate — a reflection of his lifelong emphasis on education — and to start running marathons. Years later, the two went to run the 2012 New York Marathon together but were left disconsolate after it was canceled last-minute because of Superstorm Sandy.
“He said ‘Isaac, I’m so disappointed. I trained so hard for this.’ I said, there was nothing to keep us from running the marathon anyway.
“You know the route, I told him, You’ve run it 35 times.”
“We got up at 4 a.m. the next day and ran the marathon (route) in live traffic. That was typical of him, ‘Let’s do it.’”
A friend posted on a tribute page to him: “You were perceptively named at birth by your loving mother for you have been a “good man,” in thought word and deed, throughout a long and fruitful life.”
Services were held Nov. 20. Espy was interred at Trinity Memorial Gardens in Jackson, Alabama.
The family requests donations to the Veteran’s organization Patrol Base Abbate in Espy’s memory.
About the Author
