McHenry Hospital co-founder dead at 92
Dr. George Alvary made a living out of restoring people to health, and he had a passion for restoring music to people's lives.
The Lincolnshire resident, formerly of McHenry, was one of seven doctors who helped found McHenry Hospital in McHenry and became somewhat of a musical missionary at the age of 45, said his wife, Catherine Alvary. That was when the former Air Force surgeon took up the cello and began encouraging others who had once played music to bring it back into their lives.
George Alvary died Tuesday after a long illness. He was 92.
Alvary was born in Budapest, moved to Zurich as a 10-year-old and then, at the age of 19, came to New York City, where he studied medicine before serving as a surgeon in World War II at the Battle of the Bulge.
At one point during the battle, while running a field hospital in a tent, Alvary's position was briefly captured by the Germans for a few hours, said Catherine Alvary.
The German officer told Alvary, who spoke six languages, to treat the German wounded as well as the Allies.
"He said 'We're doctors; we take care of everyone the same,' " said Catherine Alvary.
A short while later, "the Germans were overrun and vanished," she added.
After VE day, George Alvary served in Japan for a year before leaving the Air Force as a lieutenant colonel in 1945, when he and six other doctors of the McHenry Medical Group founded McHenry Hospital, the precursor to Northern Illinois Medical Center, now Centegra Hospital in McHenry, said Catherine Alvary.
Although he had always been a musician, "at the age of 45, he began to study cello for the first time, and he was a truly terrible cellist," laughed his wife Catherine.
But with work and a little help from his friend Harry Sturm of the Chicago Symphony, George Alvary "became a very good amateur cellist," she said.
He played with the Highland Park Strings, the Northbrook Symphony and the Skokie Valley Symphony. But what he loved most of all was helping people to return to playing musical instruments they had long-since abandoned, his wife said.
In fact, she said, he got his hospice doctor to take up her flute again, persuading her to play for him at his home.
"That was so typical of George," said Catherine Alvary. "He drafted people off the street and got them playing chamber music."
George Alvary is survived by his wife, five grandchildren, daughters Diane (Robert) Cornwell, Paula (Jose) Velez, Elizabeth Alvary and son Tom (Goshka) Alvary.
Visitation is at 2 p.m. Sunday, followed by services at 3 p.m. at North Shore Unitarian Church in Deerfield. Kelley & Spalding Funeral Home in Deerfield (847) 831-4260 is handling the arrangements.