Jack’s Obituary Dr. Jack Warren Fleming passed into eternal life, Thursday, January 24, 2019 surrounded by the love of his life and creative partner Carolyn Alexander Fleming and their three children, Dr. Alexander (Zan) Fleming, Merry Fleming Thomasson, and Tina Fleming Campbell of Harpers Ferry, WV, Charlottesville, and Tallahassee, respectively. Jack and Carolyn were blessed by nine grandchildren and four great grandchildren. Jack was the last of six brothers and sisters – Dr. Richard Marion Fleming, James Fleming, Patricia Fleming Butler, Babette Fleming, William Fleming, and Rosemary Fleming Duncan.
All these children of James and Ernestine Fleming grew up on 1611 East Gadsden Street and were each highly accomplished in their own ways. Jack was a student leader and star athlete at Pensacola High School. As a freshman at University of Florida, he was class president and was selected to sing in the elite university quartet.
Because it was wartime, Jack went on after less than two years to Emory School of Medicine and medical training there and at Vanderbilt University. Jack was introduced to Carolyn by a medical school classmate. They later married, lived in Nashville, and then set off on an adventure that took them to Hanford Army Base in Washington State, back to Pensacola, sabbaticals in London, New York, and Riyadh, and travel to every continent.
Dr. Fleming joined the Medical Center Clinic in 1954 and was instrumental in building it into one of the largest multi-specialty clinics in the nation. At Baptist Hospital, he helped to establish the first intensive and cardiac care units in the region. Within the region, he performed the first cardiac catherization in 1955, with Dr. Barley Beidleman started the first renal dialysis facility after training with the inventor, Drs.
Willem Johan Kolff at the Cleveland Clinic. With Dr. Jack Emlet, Dr. Fleming implanted the first cardiac pacemaker and was involved with early clinical trials of pacemakers. He performed the first successful external defibrillation.
A young man, who was saved by Dr. Fleming’s defibrillation after a construction site electrocution, often gave his testimony when Jack Fleming spoke to community groups to raise funds for cardiac care in Pensacola. At Sacred Heart Hospital, with Drs. John Wimberly and Curtis Williams, he started the first open heart surgery unit.
His long friendship with his mentor at Vanderbilt, Dr. Thomas Frist, Sr, founder of Hospital Corporation of America led to establishing one of HCA’s flagship institutions, West Florida Hospital and moving the Medical Center Clinic to adjoining state of the art facilities. There with Dr. James Andrews, he established the first nuclear cardiology department and facility in the region. Jack Fleming forged collaboration with educational and research organizations across Florida and the nation.
Dr. Fleming and Dr. Andrews sought the help of Dr. Ken Ford, then at the University of West Florida to develop an expert system to support physicians in making accurate diagnosis when using first pass functional imaging of the heart. The system was called NUCES (nuclear cardiology expert system) and was well-regarded in the early field of Artificial Intelligence. NUCES was the first substantial AI research effort undertaken by the fledgling Institute of Human & Machine Cognition, which was housed in a single room on the UWF campus and has since become a world-famous research institute, aimed at extending human capabilities.
Jack Fleming organized the first national conference on Cardiac Care in the Community, which was held in Pensacola and attracted internationally known speakers and an attendance of over 800 healthcare professionals. Jack Fleming was one of the earliest proponents in the country of the physician assistant profession. He established one of the first physician assistant training programs in the state.
Jack Fleming was a leader in the State of Florida Vocational Rehabilitation program and was a visiting professor of medicine at the University of Florida and supported the organizing of the medical school at Florida State University. After retiring from his office practice, he served veterans at the local VA clinic. Dr. Fleming wrote his first book, “A Primer on Common Functional Disorders” after completing his medical training.
Despite his busy clinical practice, he continued to publish medical articles throughout his career. Nearing retirement, he completed his last medical book, “First Pass Functional Imaging of the Heart,” co-authored with Dr. Nicholas Schad and Dr. Andrews, which was the first textbook in that field. He pursued life-long training, education, and teaching, taking sabbaticals at St. George’s Hospital, London, and serving as visiting professor at King Faisal Hospital in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
First and foremost, Jack Fleming was a beloved doctor to his many patients, who came from far and wide, and from every walk of life. He was a treasured colleague to local healthcare professionals and many internationally known experts. Throughout his life Jack Fleming took time to sing as a soloist at church services and weddings in and outside of Pensacola.
At First United Methodist Church, he and Carolyn sang in the choir for many years. He was a prolific songwriter having written many ballads and other lyrics, including “Down on the Natchez Trace” “Hitch Up Your Hippocampus,” and “Doctors with H’Art,” a musical spoof performed by and about doctors and other health professionals. He and Carolyn wrote a song for each of their children and grandchildren.
Jack and Carolyn Fleming’s creative partnership is legendary. One of their first ventures was to produce and sell plastic models that Jack had developed for teaching interpretation of electrocardiograms. Carolyn made the models by hand even while she was in a hospital bed recovering from her first delivery.
The Fleming’s co-authored the books Thinking Places, Where Great Ideas Were Born”, a collection of insights, based on their travels, into the lives of over thirty creative people, and Perils! , which recounted their own harrowing travel adventures. Together they wrote with renowned composer Allen Pote, with support from his wife Susan, the musicals Bahia de Panzacola and Imagination!
, a whimsical musical for children inspired by the life of Robert Louis Stevenson in the South Pacific. The musical has played in American Samoa where the authors made four visits. The Fleming- Pote magnum opus is Seaplane!
, an all-America musical, for which they received the Adelia Rosasco Soule Award and many other recognitions including honorary citizenship in Hammondsport, New York, the birthplace of Glenn Curtiss, one of the heroes of Seaplane! . The original 1989 stage production in Pensacola was followed by special performances at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. in 1990, a three-year summer stock run in Hammondsport, New York that ended in 1994, and a production in Pensacola that same year.
Seaplane! was last performed in August 2015 to capacity audiences at the Saenger Theatre. The late Los Angeles Times critic Charles Champlin said of the show, “It’s Music Man on wings” and “a phenomenon in Hammondsport” [when all the people of the town and] “vicinity were brought together every year in a joyous celebration”.
Researching the story of Seaplane! took Jack and Carolyn from Pensacola Naval Air Station to Miami, San Diego, and many other places. They interviewed and became friends with the descendants of Alexander Graham Bell at the family estate Beinn Bhreagh outside of Baddeck, Nova Scotia.
Bell was a major supporter of Glenn Curtiss and early aviation and an important character in the play. Jack and Carolyn were invited by the US Navy to attend in Yokohama, Japan, the decommissioning of the ship USS John Tower, named for another central character in the play, who was one of the first naval aviators and later a highly decorated admiral during WWII. A navy band played excepts from Seaplane at the ceremony.
The Flemings received jointly the Doctorate of Humane Letters from the University of West Florida and the Adelia Rosasco Soule Award for Literary Distinction, a special medal by the City of Pensacola-Escambia County, and the Pensacola New-Journal, Pioneer Award. Over the years, Jack and Carolyn hosted many luminaries at their house including internationally known physicians and scientists, like Dr. Paul Dudley White, who co-founded and led the Framingham Heart Study, which revolutionized the practice of cardiology, first heart transplant surgeon Dr. Christian Barnard, and pioneering artificial heart developers, Drs. Kolff and Robert Jarvik.
Just as often their guests were from other fields: Eudora Welty, Victor Borge, Fred Waring – composer and conductor of the famed chorus The Pennsylvanians, Frank Reynolds – ABC News Anchor, and the Rev. Dr. E. Stanley Jones, Methodist theologian and missionary often called the Billy Graham of India. Jack and Carolyn supported each other in serving the City of Pensacola and the State.
They conceived together the “A Night in Old Seville Square,” which was developed by Carolyn and Mary Turner Rule, the Junior League of Pensacola, and the nascent Pensacola Heritage Foundation. The first event was held on August 1966 and continued into the 1970s. The festival was largely succeeded by the Great Gulf Coast Arts Festival in 1973 and was revived in 1981 for the Galvez Bicentennial Celebration and for subsequent Fourth of July events of the 1980s.
Seville Square flourishes today as a community center piece. The Square is graced by the Fleming Fountain, still beautifully intact after its gift in 1990 to the city by the Fleming family, led by Jack’s sister Babette. Jack Fleming and Ted Nickinson co-founded the St. John’s Cemetery Foundation to revitalize the cemetery and make it place for community, educational, and historical events.
Jack Fleming was recognized with the Pensacola Heritage Foundation Heritage Keepers Award. Jack was a member of the Rotary Club of Pensacola and many other civic organizations. Jack and Carolyn were very active members of First United Methodist Church, serving in leadership positions and providing support and advice to many members and to Senior Pastors starting with J.B Nichols and later to become Bishop Paul Duffey, and more recently, Powers McCloud, Henry Roberts and Wesley Wachob.
The life of Jack Fleming with his partner Carolyn touched the lives of countless people and institutions in Pensacola and across the globe. He lived his dream. He made his mark.
A Celebration of Life Service will be held 11:00am Monday, February 25, 2019 at First United Methodist Church, Pensacola, FL, with Dr. Henry Roberts officiating. The family will receive guests following the service in the Wright Place at First United Methodist Church. Private family committal took place in the Fleming family lot at St. John’s Cemetery.
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