James L. Monro, FRCS (1939 - 2013), great-grandson of Major Walter Reed.
I was informed last week by Mrs. Sean (Mary) O'Dwyer, the great-grandaughter of Major Walter Reed, that her brother, James L. Monro, FRCS, (great-grandson of Reed) died 29 August 2013 (see below). Dr. Monro, an accomplished paediatric cardiac surgeon, died at his home in Southampton, England after a long battle with prostate cancer.
Major Reed (1851-1902) and his wife Emilie (Lawrence) had two children, MG Walter Lawrence Reed and Emilie (Blossom).
His son, MG Reed (1877-1956) married Lucy Blackford and they had two daughters, Mary and Landon.
Landon Reed (1906-1999?) married Dr. John Monro (1903-1993) of England. They had a son and daughter, the two great-grandchildren of WR named above,
James (1939-2013) and
Mary (b.1941), a Nightingale Nurse.
In early 2000, on the occasion of the 100th Anniversary of the Yellow Fever Board, Dr. Monro was invited to attend ceremonies as guest of honor at Walter Reed Army Medical Center. Hospital obligations in England prevented him from doing so. His sister Mary, however, was keenly interested and, welcomed in his place, she visited the old Walter Reed AMC in October. She was warmly received by the staff. She gave a brief talk describing the family tree of Major Reed, toured the hospital, visited the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences where a lecture on the Yellow Fever Board was presented, and was shown archival material at the National Museum of Health and Medicine (then at the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology) by Mr. Michael Rhode.
Dr. Monro, a renown cardiac surgeon in his own right, was a modest man who seldom, if ever, alluded to his family heritage. But he kept prominently displayed in his office at Southampton General Hospital an old framed National Geographic map of northern Virginia (titled "Reaches of the Nation's Capital"). The map itself was illuminated, so to speak, with a border of a dozen small portraits of local historical figures and their birthplaces. Included in these embroidered figures was Major Reed -- Monro's only tip-of-the-hat to his great grandfather.
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