Dr. Samuel Bachrach – Remembered
Prepared and presented by Frank J. Williams at The Lincoln Group of Boston meeting on February 4, 1989 Bridgewater, Massachusetts
The Worcester Telegram of November 28, 1988, reported the death of Dr. Samuel Bachrach the day before. Listed in the long obituary dutifully describing Doctor Sam’s significant accomplishments and community service was his membership in the Lincoln Group of Boston. We tend to see each other in one-dimensional terms when we join together at our four meetings a year and forget that each of us have other lives beyond our common interest in Abraham Lincoln. Sam’s interest and careers were many and successful. Of course, he was a physician, specializing in arthritis and geriatric medicine, with a practice in Worcester for thirty years. An army veteran of World War II, he remained in the Reserves, retiring in 1966 as a lieutenant colonel.
For many years, he was a book reviewer for the Sunday Telegram and editor-in-chief of the Worcester Medical News. In between all of this, he was the founding president of the Age. Center of Worcester Area as well as the founding president of the Worcester County Poetry Association.
He was the last active member of what was affectionately called the Worcester Contingent, who, with Judge Carl Wahlstrom and Archie St. Onge (and Vern Otterson and Rudy Hallen, sometimes), faithfully drove together to attend almost all of our meetings.
Our Lincoln Group histories do not record when Sam first became a member. It certainly antedated his very apt paper “The Physical and Mental Constitution of Lincoln” which he delivered before the Group on April 13, 1957 at the Worcester Historical Society.
Bright, articulate and possessed of an inquiring mind, he did so enjoy our meetings and found them, in the words of his wife, Lilyan, “intellectually stimulating”. He could always be counted on to ask a question or two after each presentation.
He is not only missed because of his interest in Abraham Lincoln, but because of his genuine friendship and grace which he imparted to all of us.