Search Results

CHANDLER -- JOHN ROSCOE JR. Dr. John Roscoe Chandler, Jr., 84, a resident of Rio Rancho, passed away at home on Sunday, April 8, 2007. Roscoe was born July 27, 1922 in Great Bend, KS, but was raised in Oklahoma. He graduated from Norman High School, Norman, OK and attended the University of Oklahoma. He graduated from Baylor University College of Dentistry in 1946. He was drafted immediately following graduation and received a commission in the Dental Corps. He attended the Army Medical Department Schools at Fort Sam Houston. John Roscoe and Billie Marie Stewart met in Dallas at Baylor Medical and Nursing School in 1944. It was a blind date that turned into a love affair that lasted a lifetime. They were married at home in Texarkana, AR in 1944. They have been married for sixty-one years and have been faithful and generous parents to their four children. He considered the assignment at Fort Francis E. Warren in Cheyenne, WY, one of the most valuable experiences of his dental career. As a battalion dental officer he had three months to prepare five hundred men for duty in remote areas. When they arrived in interior Alaska he worked out of a field dental chest in a remote outpost where he conducted a general practice with meager equipment, and as the only medical officer in a remote region also served as the emergency physician. Roscoe enjoyed assignments which combined prosthedontics and administration in New Mexico, Alaska, Arizona, Missouri, Washington D.C., Hawaii, and Oklahoma. He became one of the most experienced and talented prosthedontists in the Army, developing and teaching programs at Walter Reed General Hospital. He was proud of the reconstructive dental work he accomplished on soldiers who needed faces, mouths and jaws replaced and was creative, inventive and innovative with his work. In 1963 he became the Chief of Department of Dentistry and Chairman of the Dental Education Committee at Tripler Army Hospital in Honolulu, HI. He was responsible for the prosthetic dental laboratory which accomplished the laboratory work for Korea, Vietnam, and other Pacific Army installations. He worked with the Air Force, Navy, and Honolulu Dental Society on dental education programs. Roscoe said that the more than twenty years in the Army Dental Corps was a continuous teaching assignment and that teaching was his major responsibility and primary mission. He retired in 1970 as a full colonel with commendations for meritorious service. Roscoe retired in Alpine, Arizona and ran a combination grocery store with gas pumps, rental cabins and a butcher shop. In 1974 he relocated to Houston, TX where he taught at the University of Texas Dental School. He retired from teaching dentistry in 1985 and moved to Rio Rancho, NM. He was also a master photographer, naturalist, and outdoorsman who enjoyed hunting, fishing and wildlife. His wildflower and wildlife photography has inspired and enriched many lives. Roscoe is survived by his wife, Billie Marie Stewart Chandler; four children, Melanie Ann Mize, John Stewart Chandler, Gary Wayne Chandler, and Larry Richard Chandler; 13 grandchildren; and eight great-grandchildren. A Memorial Service will be held on Friday, April 13, 2007 at 3:00 p.m. at the Daniels Family Funeral Services Chapel at Vista Verde, 4310 Sara Rd., Rio Rancho, with Reverend R. G. Garrett officiating. Arrangements by Daniels Family Funeral Services 4310 Sara Rd. Rio Rancho, New Mexico (505) 892-9920
        Published on: Wed April 11, 2007