A Life of Words

We love you, Dr. Gil Ratcliff.

The venerable, cherished and revered longtime pediatrician/neonatologist in my birthplace of Huntington, West Virginia, joined his beloved Betsy in heaven on November 11, 2023.

Gil put up a valiant fight against PSP, progressive supranuclear palsy, after his diagnosis in 2020. A remarkable man whom I’ve had the supreme honor of knowing for 18 years – full of life, goodness, charm, wit and possessing a brilliant mind – Gil passed away at age 85. Like his beautiful family, we, too, are grateful his pain and suffering have ended.

Dr. Gilbert Alonzo Ratcliff Jr. spent 49 years showering untold numbers of Huntington-area children with kindness, compassion and love while also dispensing medical care before his retirement at 74 in 2012. After that, he spent most of his time at the quaint old farm where the Ratcliffs had lived in Proctorville, Ohio, just across the Ohio River from Huntington, since 2005. Gil adored his dogs, raised chickens, goats and even gave beekeeping a go for a while.

When my family last visited Huntington in the summer of 2015, Gil was brimming with energy and good health, and I felt certain the farm life would be his to indulge in for years to come. And knowing that his father, Dr. Gilbert A. Ratcliff Sr., an Ob/Gyn who brought me into this life in February 1961, had lived to be 101 before his death in 1999, I envisioned Gil approaching similar longevity.

For those who may not be familiar with why Gil and Betsy mean so much to me and my family, it runs deeper than the fact that his father delivered me. Besides the three full-blooded older siblings with whom I connected and bonded for life in 2005, the Ratcliffs are the single most important part of my birth family journey. They truly have been like family to me.

I’ll spare you the details, but without Gil and Betsy’s help, I’d probably still be searching. No, I’m pretty sure I would’ve given up long before now if I’d continued hitting roadblocks like I did during the first months of my quest.

Gil was born in Huntington in January 1938, exactly a year after a flood devastated the city in early 1937. He went on to graduate in 1963 from the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and married Betsy, a nurse and longtime Red Cross leader, the following year. Gil also co-founded the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit at Cabell Huntington Hospital, where I was born.

Between Gil, his brother Bruce (who retired as an Ob/Gyn a few years ago) and their father, can you imagine how many Huntington-area patients/families they cared for over the decades? The Ratcliff family is legendary in Tri-State-area (West Virginia-Ohio-Kentucky) health care.

My adoptive parents Clark and Olga were forever thankful to Dr. Ratcliff Sr. for his role in my birth and adoption – so much so that they gave me a second middle name to go with Lindsay (also Dad’s middle name). It’s Gilbert, and both appear on my amended birth certificate.

After finding my siblings, all of whom had left Huntington by the early ’70s, I made several trips there with my sister Terry between 2005 and 2015, seeing new places, meeting new people and visiting our mother Betty’s grave. Terry and I loved spending time with Gil and Betsy, and I’ll always treasure the bonds we forged with them during those visits. They were also thoughtful enough to invite me to stay with them at the farm, experiences I’ll always remember.

My appreciation, admiration and respect for Gil run as deep as for anyone I’ve ever known. He was a man of the utmost decency, integrity and humanity, qualities that shone through whenever we were together. I consider myself infinitely fortunate and blessed to have been so generously welcomed into Gil’s life, and Betsy’s.

Thank you, Gil. God bless you, Betsy and your dear family.