[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 132 (Monday, September 28, 1998)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E1832-E1833]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
CONGRATULATIONS TO OUTSTANDING ST. PAUL FAMILY
______
HON. BRUCE F. VENTO
of minnesota
in the house of representatives
Monday, September 28, 1998
Mr. VENTO. Mr. Speaker, I would like to submit for the record the
following article from the Sunday, August 23, 1998 edition of the St.
Paul Pioneer Press in recognition of the Crutchfield family of St.
Paul, for their outstanding and tireless efforts in community service.
My congratulations to the Crutchfields and their many admirable
achievements.
This recognition is well deserved and is a small reward for the
service that Dr. Charles Crutchfield and his wonderful wife, Pat
Crutchfield, have performed. They have remained in a community of
modest means, while actively involved in their church, educational and
social life, attempting to help give back to their community their love
and labor to make St. Paul a better place to extend hope and the
opportunity to grow to succeed to make a difference. Through their
example and sacrifice, they have walked the walk. The Crutchfields'
reward has been the great success of their children and the extended
family and community they have embraced and their payment our love,
affection and heartfelt thanks.
Thanks to the Crutchfields of St. Paul. They make us proud--very
proud.
[From the St. Paul Pioneer Press, Aug. 23, 1998]
An Outstanding Family
(By Pat Burson)
In St. Paul, the Crutchfield name is synonymous with
family, education, community and success.
Those attributes made the family of Dr. Charles E.
Crutchfield, a nationally recognized obstetrician and
gynecologist, and his wife of 22 years, Pat, a tireless
community fund-raiser and volunteer, a natural choice to
receive the 1998 Family of the Year award from the St. Paul
Urban League, said president Willie Mae Wilson.
``It's an outstanding family,'' she said.
Pat Crutchfield said she was shocked and humbled to learn
that her family had been selected.
``I was embarrassed,'' she added. ``I never look at what we
do, getting recognized for it. You just do it. I just feel
like I'm doing what I'm supposed to do. Not anything
special.''
They're just being modest, said neighbor Dick Mangram, who
has known the Crutchfields for about 30 years.
Mangram, executive director of Hallie Q. Brown/Martin
Luther King Community Center, also served on the St. Paul
Urban League's board with Pat Crutchfield from 1982 to 1987.
``They're not the kind of people that will go around and
toot their own horn,'' he said. ``They're just good people.
What you see is what you get. They're really proud to be
right here in the city.''
Charles Crutchfield was the first private black
obstetrician/gynecologist in Minnesota. He entered private
practice with his mentor, Dr. Joseph Goldsmith, in 1969. In
addition to having a main office in the Fort Road Medical
Center on West Seventh Street near downtown St. Paul, he and
his partner, Dr. Rainer Rocheleau, also have offices in Apple
Valley, Inver Grove Heights and White Bear Lake. Crutchfield
has performed more than 3,000 operations and delivered almost
6,000 babies.
One of those deliveries earned him national media attention
in December 1982, after he walked three miles in a blizzard
to deliver a baby by emergency Caesarean section.
Crutchfield was honored in January by the Washington-based
National Medical Association for his numerous contributions
to the organization. He also has served as president of the
Minnesota Association of Black Physicians.
In addition to the other medical and community
organizations he is involved with, Crutchfield also is a
physician and safety official for amateur boxing in
Minnesota. He's an avid softball player and has even had his
own team that his wife calls the ``Crutchbangers.''
A Chicago native, Pat Wilson Crutchfield moved with her
family to the Twin Cities at age 4. Community service is part
of the wellknown family's legacy. Her youngest brother, Steve
Wilson, is president of Rondo Ave. Inc., which puts on the
annual Rondo Days Parade. She had a Catholic education,
attending St. Peter Claver Elementary School, Archbishop
Murray High School and the College of St. Catherine.
Through United Hospital's ``First Steps'' program, Pat
Crutchfield has helped many teen mothers cope with the
challenges and the uncertainties they face. She wrote a
popular weekly social column, ``Pat's Tidbits,'' for the St.
Paul Recorder and the Minneapolis Spokesman from 1990 to
1996. The column chronicled the births, deaths, reunions,
club events, parties and other activities of Twin Cities
African-Americans.
The couple met in June 1974 at Model Cities Health Center,
a community clinic at 430 N. Dale St., where both were
volunteers. She was 29 and single, a business services
instructor and communications specialist at Northwestern Bell
Telephone Co., now US West. He was six years her senior,
separated and the father of three young sons. They were
married Jan. 30, 1976.
On their honeymoon, the couple sketched a design of their
dream home. The result is the three-story house on Aurora
Avenue in St. Paul's Summit-University neighborhood, where
they still live.
Their longevity in the area endears them to many who know
them, including Steve Wilson.
``A lot of doctors, when they make it, the first thing they
do is move to the suburbs,'' he said. ``People ask
(Crutchfield), `Why do you stay?' And his answer has always
been, `Why would I leave?' ''
The front yard is decorated with Pat Crutchfield's flower
beds of canna lilies, peonies, pansies, roses and day lilies.
Out back is Charles Crutchfield's pride and joy: his
vegetable garden, with its assortment of greens, from collard
to ruffled kale. He also has an orchard of apple, cherry,
plum, pear and peach trees, wild strawberries and vines
bearing seedless grapes
Things haven't always been rosy. In 1983, a jury found
Charles Crutchfield was not at fault for the cerebral palsy
of a child he delivered. The girls' parents had brought a
civil lawsuit against Crutchfield for malpractice.
In 1984, Crutchfield was accused of rape in a civil lawsuit
brought by Renee Reed, a woman he treated at a free clinic
years before. She was seeking monetary damages for a 1982
sexual encounter the doctor said was consensual, part of a
three-year affair. He, in turn, sued Reed's father and her
spiritual adviser, claiming the men were attempting to
extort money from him with the rape allegation. Reed was
awarded $21,500 by the judge in the case. Her father won
$5,000 when the extortion claim was denied.
Charles Crutchfield said his attorney told him the only
reason he had to pay anything
[[Page E1833]]
was because the judge felt he should at least cover part of
the court costs and because he had admitted having the
affair.
``This was strictly civil and had no criminal
implications,'' Crutchfield added. ``I was hurt, but my wife
and I moved on with our lives, our family and our service to
the community.''
Added Pat Crutchfield: ``It was one of our storms that we
weathered, and it did bring us closer. It strengthened our
marriage, our relationship.''
Now they are facing a serious challenge involving the
health of the family matriarch. Pat Crutchfield was diagnosed
in 1992 with scleroderma, a fairly rare disease affecting the
blood vessels and connective tissue. She has changed her
hairstyle and wears long-sleeved blouses to cover areas where
her skin has become hardened, a symptom of the disease.
The condition dramatically altered her role as family
caretaker.
``I've never had a health problem. I've always been the
doer for my family,'' she explained. ``The biggest thing is
that my family has had to care for me.
``They've had to take more responsibility, which has
probably been good. It has changed us around as far as
commitments that we make. We've had a couple of trips that
we've had to cancel, or I've just stayed home. I just wasn't
able.
``It beats me down,'' she conceded, though she refuses to
allow it overtake her. ``I stay down for a while, and then I
jump up and keep stepping.''
The Crutchfields say her illness has forced family members
to rethink and reorder some of their priorities.
``The disease has made us appreciate what is important and
what is not important,'' Charles Crutchfield said. ``And all
I do is support her and tell her she's the best.''
And its effect on the family?
``It disrupted the family,'' he conceded. ``It cracked it.
It didn't break it.''
Those who know Pat Crutchfield say the disease has left its
mark on her body but cannot quench her spirit. One of them is
childhood friend Dee Dee Ray. The women have known one
another since grade school.
``Pat has such faith, and she always looks on the bright
side,'' Ray said, ``She's a very religious person. I've seen
her make many, many novenas . . . . She doesn't give up hope.
She just keeps going.''
Even with their busy schedules and numerous commitments,
the Crutchfields still have time for each other, whether it's
visiting, talking on the phone or during harvesting, canning,
preserving and freezing the homegrown bounty from their
vegetable gardens and orchards.
Sunday dinners, birthdays and holidays are special times in
their home, as is fight night, when about 40 to 50 of their
closest friends come over to watch boxing and eat Charles
Crutchfield's famous chili.
He learned about growing food while growing up in Jasper,
Ala., a small, segregated coal-mining town. His father was a
barber whose business was the oldest owned by an African-
American in that town. Wanting their son to have a chance to
fulfill his dream of becoming a doctor, his parents sent him
to live with an aunt in Minneapolis in 1955. He is a graduate
of North High School and the University of Minnesota School
of Medicine.
The Crutchfields have instilled their value of education in
their children. Since their children were small, they have
always told them to ``work hard, get good grades and always
do your best.''
It appears to have sunk in. Crutchfield's three sons with
former wife, Dr. Susan Crutchfield-Mitsch, a family
physician, are all in either the legal or medical profession.
Charles III, 37, is a dermatologist, Carleton, 33 is an
attorney and Chris, 28, also is an attorney and a staff
assistant to state Rep. Andy Dawkins of St. Paul. Charles and
Pat Crutchfields' daughter Raushana, 21, is a junior and
psychology major at Virginia Union University in Richmond,
Va., and son Rashad, 18, will be a senior at Concordia
Academy in Roseville.
Rashad said he knows he's part of a very special family.
When asked if he'll be the next Crutchfield doctor or
lawyer, he smiled. No, he said. Right now, he's leaning
toward attending a college that specializes in film, theater
arts or graphic design.
``I'm not that much for blood and guts, except in slasher
films,'' he said.
`` `Crutchfield.' I do see power in that name,'' he said
proudly. ``We're an African-American family that's just
trying to find a way through life, trying to succeed.''
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