ALEC Foxton, one of the first doctors to service the Redland district, has died at 92.
Dr Foxton bought a Cleveland practice in 1955.
His wife Meredith (nee Sheil), who died in 2013, also was a doctor and the pair formed a remarkable duo.
Son Harry Foxton said that as well as medicine, his father and mother played important roles in many district groups.
Dr Foxton was patron of the Cleveland Yacht Club, led a local ambulance committee and was also joint patron at Star Community Services with Meredith.
He also campaigned on broader issues like the need for sewerage and mosquito control.
“They were here in the days when doctors actually made house calls in the middle of the night,” Mr Foxton said.
“Mum was pregnant with me when they came here. She said that when they arrived, the population of doctors rose by 100 per cent – from one to two.”
At the time farming was the region’s major industry, communications were poor and to get around was not easy.
“People would come in (to the surgery) and say ‘we’ll pay you when the strawberries come in doc’,” he said.
Dr Foxton and his wife handled everything from surgery to births. He serviced district hospitals on the mainland and North Stradbroke Island and the leper colony at Peel Island.
Meredith married Alec in 1954, raised the couple’s children, worked part-time and pursued community activities like helping restore Ormiston House and as a member of the Yurara Art Group.
She also played an integral role in arranging community nursing and helped set up Cleveland's first opportunity school and a kindergarten.
Over 45 years, their practice grew into the Redlands Clinic, the largest in Redland City.
Mr Foxton said his father played cricket, rugby and boxed.
“He was six foot three and had a pretty long reach.”
Alec was prominent as a pupil at Brisbane Boys College and later with organising old boy functions.
He also served as an able seaman and sonar operator on a minesweeper in the Royal Australian Navy in WWII.
Mr Foxton said his father was modest and never liked a fuss to be made. He retired in 2000 in his 70s.
He missed his wife terribly when she died and lived on in their Cleveland home.
A park bench at Raby Bay bears the names of him and his wife and the word “devotion”.
This summed up their relationship and their attachment to the Redland community.
Dr Foxton is survived by four children and seven grandchildren.
