Ray Elwood Bucher

Ray Elwood Bucher, son of Claude Earl Bucher and Ethel Wales, was born 27 June 1911 in Winslow, Stephenson County, IL, the community where his father had spent his teenage years.

Ray’s childhood was greatly impacted by the death of his doctor father in an automobile accident while making a house call in the autumn of 1915, when Ray was only four years old. At the time of the tragedy Claude and Ethel had been residing in Williamsville, Sangamon County, IL (near Springfield), where he had recently set up his practice. Upon her sudden widowhood Ethel sought the haven of her parents’ home in Stephenson County -- at that time consisting of a farm near Winslow. The Bucher brood -- Ray and his brother Earl and sisters Mary and Helen (the latter born after her father’s death) -- spent the rest of their childhoods in Stephenson County. Grandparents Adam J. Wales and Harriett Jerusha Diveley continued to play a major role in their upbringing, except that Harriett passed away in early 1926, when Ray was fourteen. This event occurred a year or so after the household had moved from the farm into the town of Freeport, the county seat. The children also remained closely tied to their father’s clan in Winslow and nearby Martintown, Green County, WI. In fact, Ray did not go to high school in Freeport but in Winslow. He graduated from Winslow High as part of the Class of 1930.

Ray was inspired by his father and became a doctor. He attended the University of Illinois School of Medicine at Urbana/Champaign and then went on to U of I School of Medicine in Chicago, also known as Rush Medical School, as part of the Class of 1936. (The photo of Ray at the upper left is his graduation-year photo from the university yearbook.) His brother Earl was ahead of him by two years and as undergraduates both lived in the same fraternity house.

Ray became a gynecologist. He interned at St. Joseph’s Hospital in Chicago, and began his private practice in Fairmount, Vermilion County, IL in 1937. As this was going on, he became a husband. His wife was Mildred Elizabeth Williams, daughter of George Lafayette Williams and Minnie Thedford. Mildred was a Tennessee girl, born 7 November 1913 in McEwen, Humphreys County, TN and subsequently raised there. The wedding occurred 7 July 1937 in Nashville, Davidson County, TN.

Ray’s office soon shifted across Vermilion County to the town of Danville. He quickly established himself within the medical community there, including being named assistant to the chief surgeon for the Wabash railway company in 1940. He served the OB/GYN needs of Danville for thirty years. His aunt Rose Bucher and her husband Charles Buss had settled in the Danville area during the 1920s. Eunice Black, the wife of Rose’s son Dwight Cecil Buss, was one of Ray’s patients throughout his career. Eunice was from Fairmount and had probably become his patient in her late teens, while Ray’s practice was still Fairmount-based. Ray may even have been the intermediary who introduced Eunice and Dwight.

By living in Vermilion County, Ray was closing a circle of family history, though he may not have been aware of it. His great great grandparents Jacob Strader and Rachel Starr, along with Rachel’s parents and many of her siblings, had been pioneers of Vermilion County at the beginning of the 1820s. Ray’s great-grandmother Hannah Strader had been born on a farm about two miles west of the village of Georgetown. That land was located only half a dozen miles from Fairmount, and only about ten miles from Danville. Dwight Buss went on to become a mail carrier serving the modern residents of the farms first established by Starr-clan family members. Ray’s patients must have included some of those very same residents.

Ray retired in June, 1972. He and Mildred decided to spend their twilight years in Hendersonville, Sumner County, TN. However, he spent at most a year in Hendersonville before perishing of an apparent heart attack. His date of death was 2 July 1973. His remains were interred at Sunset Memorial Park in Danville. Mildred survived him by a long span, passing away 20 July 2000 in Englewood, Sarasota County, FL. Her remains were placed with those of Ray at Sunset Memorial Park.

Earl and Ray Bucher both appear in this photograph of Alpha Kappa Kappa fraternity members published in the 1933 Ilio yearbook of the University of Illinois at Urbana/Champaign. Earl, a junior, is third from the left in the second row back. Ray, a freshman, is on the far right of that same row -- i.e. Ray is the man closest to the righthand lower corner of the photo.

Descendants of Ray Elwood Bucher with Mildred Elizabeth Williams

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