Funeral services will be held on Friday, November 7 for longtime St. Louis obstetrician/gynecologist Jonathan Raymond Reed, MD, who passed away Monday, November 3, 2014 at age 80.
His career included nearly 50 years in women’s health, bringing newborns into the world and serving the community in private practice and in public health, retiring in 2006.
“It was truly an amazing experience,” Dr. Reed told The American in 2011. That year, Dr. Reed received the St. Louis American Foundation’s highest honor in health care, its Lifetime Achievement Award, at the Salute to Excellence in Health Care.
“Through my practice, I realized that all people need access to medical care,” Dr. Reed said. “Science doesn’t recognize skin color or socio-economic status.”
Dr. Reed said in his experience, financial issues were the reason that many patients in the African-American community did not seek early prenatal health care or other preventative screenings.
“They were caught in the middle where they didn’t qualify for insurance or the government-supplemental programs,” he said.
“We would accept them, no matter if they had adequate coverage, partial coverage or full coverage.”
Reed was born on November 5, 1933 in Chicago, Illinois, the first child of Jonathan and Sally Reed. He graduated from Wendell Phillips Academy High School and matriculated to Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee, where he earned his B.A. in Biology. After graduating from college, Reed was drafted in the United States Army and he served in Korea.
Following an honorable discharge, he moved back to Chicago where Reed met and married his wife of 53 years, Bettye Walker. After graduating from Meharry Medical College in Nashville, Dr. Reed began his residency in Obstetrics and Gynecology at Homer G. Phillips Hospital in St. Louis.
“That experience at Homer Phillips was really amazing,” Dr. Reed told The American. “The constant supervision, the good teaching, the excellent dispensing of medical care and the commitment of the entire staff were truly impressive.”
Dr. Reed started his private medical practice in the City of St. Louis and he later served as an assistant clinical professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology at Washington University School of Medicine.
Fellow OBGYN Nathaniel Murdock M.D. considers Dr. Reed a very dear friend.
He said they would cover each other’s practices when one or the other were away. Murdock described Reed as a fantastic physician and a very dependable person.
“He was very trustworthy,” Dr. Murdock said. “If you asked him to do a task, you could forget about the task, because he would do it – it would be done.”
Family practitioner Denise Hooks Anderson, MD, medical accuracy editor for the American, said, “He was such an encouragement to me when I was president of Mound City Medical Forum. He was a true gentleman.”
After retiring from private practice, Dr. Reed served as head of the OB/GYN department at Myrtle Hilliard Davis Comprehensive Health Centers.
Dr. Reed was a lifetime member of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc. and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. He was also a Fellow of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, and a member of the National Medical Association, Mound City Medical Association, Eta Boule (Sigma Pi Phi Fraternity), the St. Louis Chapter of the National Association of Guardsmen, the Urban League of Metropolitan St. Louis and Washington Metropolitan A.M.E. Zion Church.
Dr. Reed was active throughout his retirement. He was an avid tennis player, golfer and world traveler.
Dr. Reed is preceded in death by his parents, Jonathan and Sally Reed, and his sister, Rochelle Reed Lester. He is survived by his wife Bettye, his daughters Stacy Reed Mevs, MD, Michelle Reed Arnold, MD (Kevin), Dana Maria Reed; and his grandsons Jonathan Reed Mevs, Christopher Michael Mevs, Davis Walker Munchus and Dylan Scott Munchus.
Visitation takes place at 10 a.m. Friday, November 7 at Washington A.M.E. Zion Church, 613 North Garrison Avenue in St. Louis (63103). Dr. Reed’s funeral begins at noon at the church, followed by a 2 p.m. burial at Jefferson Barracks National Cemetery.
Memorial donations may be made to Meharry Medical College in the name of Dr. Jonathan R. Reed, class of 1965.
