William Felix Calhoun Jr., M.D.

Published 12:00 am Saturday, July 6, 2013

Aug. 6, 1925 – July 4, 2013

NATCHEZ — Services for William Felix Calhoun Jr., M.D., 87, of Natchez, who died Thursday, July 4, at St. Dominic Hospital in Jackson, will be at 3 p.m. Sunday at Trinity Episcopal Church with the Rev. Sam Tomlinson officiating.

Visitation will be from 2 p.m. until service time Sunday at the church.

Dr. Calhoun was born Aug. 6, 1925, at LaVacca Plantation in Catahoula Parish, the son of William Felix Calhoun and Zaidee Boatner Calhoun.

From 1942 to 1944, he was a pre-medical student at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge. He attended LSU Medical School from 1944 until 1948. In 1951, he completed his internship and pediatric medicine residency at Charity Hospital in New Orleans.

He moved to Natchez in 1951 to practice pediatric medicine with the Natchez Medical Group. In June 1953, he was drafted by the U.S. Army Medical Corps with the rank of Captain. He served as chief of pediatrics at William Beaumont Hospital in El Paso, Texas.

Dr. Calhoun returned to Natchez in 1955 to practice pediatric medicine until his retirement in June 1992. Devoted to the health and welfare of children for the rest of his life, he remained keenly interested in pediatric care, reading widely on the subject.

Dr. Calhoun was also interested in historic preservation, gardening, farming, travel, classical music and education.

In 1975, he restored Elgin Plantation, the family home that is annually opened on the Natchez Spring Pilgrimage.  For years, he was an avid gardener there, successfully recapturing the historic horticulture. He was also deeply interested in farming properties in east central Louisiana.

For years, Dr. Calhoun traveled to numerous foreign countries, often taking his family with him. When the Natchez Festival of Music began in Natchez in 1991, he was an early supporter, particularly enjoying his favorite opera, “Faust.”

Interested in education at all levels, he was a longtime supporter of Trinity Episcopal School in Natchez.

Dr. Calhoun was preceded in death by his parents; an infant brother, William Baker Calhoun; and one sister, Mary Elizabeth Kennedy.

Survivors include his wife of 53 years, Ruth Ellen Green Calhoun; three children, Ruth Hughes and husband, Dick, of  Mountain Top, Pa., William “Bo” Calhoun, M.D., and wife, Jennifer, of Tupelo and Ellen Collett, M.D., and husband, Rountree, of Morganton, N.C.; nine grandchildren, Callie, Ellen and Richard Hughes; Anna, Boatner and Hudson Calhoun, and James, John and Ruth Ellen Collett; one sister, Zaidee Hurst of Jackson, Tenn.; and three sisters-in-law, Ethel Banta of Natchez and Dorothy Green and Helen Green, both of Jackson.