IRVIN, M.D., Michael Zwiebel

Michael Z. Irvin, M.D., a retired anesthesiologist, died Friday, March 12, 2004. He was born the third son and youngest of eight children of Mike and Emma Zwiebel in Papillion, Nebraska on July 13, 1914. His parents, deprived of education themselves, at great sacrifice shepherded their children through the local school system and had children there for thirty years until Irvin graduated in 1931. He spent one year at Pasadena Junior College of California. Thereafter he worked as a laborer, hospital steward, billing clerk and bookkeeper. He spent 1937 to 1940 at Bellevue Hospital in New York City emerging as a registered nurse. He spent the war years at the University of Nebraska College of Medicine. He was called to active duty with the Army Medical Corps in 1946, and served during the occupation of Japan and then at Madigan General Hospital near Tacoma, Washington. He was mustered out in April 1950 (two months before the start of the Korean War) as a captain. He worked in family practice in Tacoma. From 1957 to 1959 he served residences in anesthesia at Virginia Mason Hospital and Swedish Hospital in Seattle, Washington, and thereafter was on the anesthesia staff at various hospitals in Tacoma and Seattle until retirement in 1979, whence he moved to Sun City, Arizona. His name was legally changed from Irvin Michael Zwiebel to Michael Z. Irvin in 1943. During his professional life he was a member of various hospital staffs and professional organizations and was an honored member of the Washington Medical Association and the American Medical Association. He was a member of the Unitarian Universalist Church of Sun City, Arizona, and of various volunteer organizations. In 1946 he married Emilie Blazek and to this union four children were born, all of whom, with spouses survive: Michael J. and Susan Irvin, Philip and Joan Irvin, Rosemary Irvin and Rebecca and Michael Shackett; and two grandchildren: Lois and Mary Irvin. In 1978 he married Elsie H. Kadue Koester of Sun City, Arizona. His second wife Elsie Irvin, stepdaughters Beverly Koester and Barbara Kester and as well as step grandchildren also survive him. Memorials may be made to the Red Cross. Published in the Daily News-Sun on 4/1/2004.