Stanley Mathew Kotula, a retired Southeast Baltimore dentist who served generations of sufferers at his Luzerne Avenue workplace, died of coronary heart failure June 30 at Gilchrist Hospice Care of Towson. The former Riderwood resident was 96.
Born in Baltimore and raised in Canton, he turned into the son of Thomas Kotula, a Bethlehem Steel foreman, and his spouse, Bertha, a homemaker. He attended Holy Rosary School and become a 1941 graduate of Calvert Hall College High School. He earned a bachelor’s degree on the University of Maryland, College Park and become a 1947 graduate of the University of Maryland Dental School.
He enlisted within the Navy and served as a lieutenant in the course of World War II, and later was called to active duty all through the Korean War. He became assigned to the Bainbridge Training Station in Cecil County.
Shortly after establishing his dental exercise at 533 S. Luzerne Ave., he met his future wife, Mary Louise Paszek, who got here to him as a affected person.
His son, Joseph S. Kutola, a Towson resident, said his father borrowed cash from his father to establish his dental exercise within the neighborhood where he became born. He became one of the neighborhood’s first-class-known dentists, his son stated, and counted among his sufferers many participants of the Holy Rosary and St. Casimir Roman Catholic parishes, in addition to Bethlehem Steel employees.
“His father desired him to go to work at Bethlehem Steel and was amazed at how fast he paid the loan off. My father changed into a hard worker and shortly had an workplace full of patients,” stated his son. “The ready room continually had humans in it, and there were instances after they spilled out the the front door and onto the marble steps.”
The first floor of the S. Luzerne Avenue domestic turned into a -chair dental office. He changed into a solo practitioner and frequently had each chairs occupied. He installation a dental work area in the rear of the constructing wherein he made bridgework on nights and weekends. The 2nd ground was the own family domestic until he and his wife and kids relocated to the Loch Raven Boulevard location and later Riderwood.
“He labored lengthy hours, six days every week and served the community for greater than 50 years,” his son said. “You could not meet someone on that area who did not recognised my dad.”
He retired about 1997 and offered the workplace in 2001.
“He remained insatiably curious approximately the career that become his ardour as he constantly examine up on new discoveries or processes within the dental industry,” his son stated. “My dad cherished his sufferers and cared for lots of them from early life to maturity. His patents got here as some distance away as Locust Point and Dundalk, and those who moved to Essex and Parkville might come again to him.”
In his unfastened time, Dr. Kotula pointed out sports activities — he was an Orioles fan and a Colts and Ravens follower. He also had an appreciation for boxing.
He accrued jokes from Readers’ Digest magazines and repeated them to his patients.
“It helped if you didn’t don’t forget the punch line,” his son said. “But he absolutely ought to —his reminiscence was uncanny retentive into his 90s, with the potential to recall best info of his lifestyles, even lower back to his youth,” his son stated.
Among the stories he advised become as a boy, he carried bottles of bath gin at some point of Prohibition from a lady who made it in Fells Point. He can also recall whilst Baltimore’s motors, parked on town streets, were required to have a running overnight parking mild.
Dr. Kortula also have become the caregiver for his spouse whilst she developed dementia and changed into later recognized with Alzheimer’s sickness.
“My father took on the role as primary caretaker.” his son said. “Nothing made him happier than a own family accumulating and seeing or hearing approximately his grandchildren or extraordinary-grandchildren. It changed into tremendous how tons he knew approximately each child and all the info in their lives. They have been his delight and pleasure.”
His his wife of fifty eight years died in 2006.
A funeral Mass could be presented at 10:30 a.M. Monday at Oakcrest Retirement Community in Parkville, in which he spent the final 17 years.
In addition to his son, survivors encompass 3 different sons, Stanley J. Kotula of Fort Mill, S.C., Robert T. Kotula of Fallston and Paul A. Kotula of Cambridge; daughters, Susan Ziegler of Riderwood and Teresa M. Hofferbert of Ocean Pines; a sister, Sister Leona Kotula of Philadelphia; a brother, Thomas Kotula of Baltimore; 16 grandchildren and 15 splendid-grandchildren. A daughter, Mary Claire Burke, died in 1996.
