looked up at me with what could have been a gleam in his eyes and said, "Well, now that we've finished this part, let's prop them up and put a fresh coat of paint on the undersides, too."

Like the Army shirt, some of his other clothes were old friends he could not abandon. One day, noticing the worn canvas around the toes of his ancient sneakers, I offered to treat him to some new ones. "But why in the world would I want them?" he asked in wonderment. "I already have a pair of tennis shoes."

In Rad's devout Episcopalian family, unselfish commitment was a way of life. Talent was to be used not to advance oneself but to help others; frugality was a given. His father, a dentist, sang in the choir, was a member of the vestry, and served two terms as mayor of Little Falls, N.Y. His mother entered Vassar in 1901, when few women went to college. Two years later, at age 21, she left school to marry Rad's father, but her zest for learning never ceased. Elected the first woman president of the Little Falls board of education, she also taught Sunday School and for years shared her love of good books by reading aloud classics such as David Copperfield and King Arthur and His Knights. Rad and his four sisters learned to identify songbirds, wildflowers, and constellations. Every August, his mother held a Perseid picnic on the hill behind the family's house—spreading blankets on the ground so the children could lie down and gaze up, waiting for the dazzling shooting-star spectacle to begin.

That the family bond was strong and abiding became evident in the late 1930s, when Rad first started to earn a full-time salary. He immediately began sending money home to help pay for the college tuition of his younger sisters.

A poignant example of how scarce money was for him when he was a student came to light recently as I read through a box of letters in Rad's study, including some he had written home as a freshman in college. Arriving at Dartmouth in September of 1921, a few days after he turned 16, he moved his belongings into his dorm room in North Massachusetts

Top, Rad and Sheila Tanzer on their wedding day—June 2, 1995. Above, Tanzer on his bike in 1969. At right, Tanzer (center) with a young patient.

Hall. Though it is not likely that Rad ever coveted any material object, the large Dartmouth banner that his roommate had hung on his side of the room clearly caught Rad's fancy. In a letter written on his mother's hand-me-down typewriter, he described the events of September 20, 1921:

"Billy and I waited for three hours to register this morning. . . . I had to write a check for $185 for board and tuition, so together with the Morris chair, my funds are pretty low. I have $58 left, but I think this will last me till Christmas. I went to the Christian Association to see about a job typewriting. He advised me not to work the first month, but to study. He says he may be able to get me a job after that.

"Last night about 20 fellows came into the room selling different things. I stalled them off as best I could. I would like a Dartmouth banner, but the little ones are $3.00, medium $5.70, and the large ones $9.00. I wonder if it would be much trouble to make one?"

For comparison's sake, a large such banner costs $78 today. Rad knew that buying one was impossible. Still, the question that he asked led his mother to

respond as he must have known she would. He sent a sample of green felt, and when she had located a match, she mailed a piece for his approval. "Yes, proceed," he wrote back, providing her with the exact measurements of the green rectangle with its white letters and class numerals.

I like to picture Rad admiring his mother's handiwork before he hung it on his wall—an emblem of the college to which he was loyal for the rest of his long life. A few months ago, going through some things Rad had packed away in a suitcase, I came across that homemade banner—intact 82 years after its creation—the banner that money couldn't buy.

After he retired, Rad endowed two scholarship funds at Dartmouth Medical School. And toward the end of his life, he willed over $1 million—an amount that amazed everyone, because he had lived so simply—to establish an educational endowment for the DHMC Section of Plastic Surgery, which he had founded. When Rad joined the Dartmouth faculty in 1939, he was only the 16th doctor and fifth surgeon at the Hitchcock Clinic and the only plastic surgeon in all of northern New England.

To be in Rad's company was to be in the presence of extraordinary kindness. During our eight years together, never once did I hear him make a critical remark about another person (even when one might have been called for!). In the last few years of his life, in spite of hearing aids, it was hard for him to understand everything. But instead of grumbling, "Speak up! I can't hear!" he never failed to convey exquisite courtesy in his response: "I'm sorry, I didn't quite catch what you said. Would you mind repeating it for me?"

The ideal of ever-present courtesy had entered his imagination as a child when he listened to his mother read about King Arthur and his worthy minions. A well-worn copy of Howard Pyle's 1912 edition of The Story of King Arthur and His Knights, a gift to Rad on his eighth birthday, still sits on a bookshelf behind his wing chair. Pyle pointed out that one becomes a true knight not by wearing a