Individual Details

Nelson K. Ordway, M.D., died of prostate/bladder cancer on Dec. 31 in Scottsdale, Ariz. He was 85.
Dr. Ordway, a native of Maine, attended Yale College and was a 1938 graduate of the School of Medicine. His postgraduate training was done at the New Haven Hospital and the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania. During World War II he was a research assistant in pathology at Yale, where he conducted research on defenses against chemical warfare. In 1945 he joined the pediatrics faculty at Yale as an instructor. In 1947, he was invited to help a fellow Yale alumnus, Myron E. Wegman, M.D. ’32, M.P.H., rebuild the pediatrics department at Louisiana State University Medical School in New Orleans and became department chair in 1952.

According to Dr. Wegman, “Nelson brought to our budding department a dimension of Yale-bred laboratory competence and research
that led us to fantasize about building a miniature New Haven in New Orleans.” But while at LSU, Dr. Ordway ran afoul of then-rampant McCarthyism when he rose to the defense of a colleague who had refused to sign a loyalty oath. Dr. Ordway maintained that political views were irrelevant to his colleagues competence as a teacher. The colleague was forced to resign and Dr. Ordway was told that pediatrics would receive no funding as long as he remained chairman. He then joined the faculty of the University of North Carolina and returned to Yale in 1958 as professor of pediatrics.
In 1967, he served a year as a Rockefeller Foundation visiting professor at the Universidad del Valle, in Cali, Colombia, then moved to the University of Oklahoma, where he remained until 1974. He periodically taught and lectured in Latin America.

Throughout his career, he placed an emphasis on direct care of infants and children. The chance to do more of this led him to join the Indian Health Service in 1974, first in Gallup, N.M., and then in Phoenix, Ariz., where he eventually retired in 1985.

Dr. Ordway, as a member of Physicians for Social Responsibility, was arrested protesting against continued testing of nuclear weapons in Arizona.
He was a lover of music and an avid hiker who at 16 climbed the Jungfrau in the Swiss Alps. At age 64, he trekked with granddaughter Nancy in the Himalayas to a level of almost 19,000 feet. He was still camping, with the aid of a walker, within a few months of his death.
Published in Yale Medicine Summer 1998

....He was succeeded by Nelson Ordway, who had developed Ordway's Solution, a popular treatment for rehydrating children suffering from diarrhea. Ordway stayed in the position only briefly, leaving in 1954 to become Chairman of Pediatrics at Yale.
Excerpted from A History of LSu School of Medicine New Orleans By Russell C. Klein (2010)

Nelson Ordway was born on October 26, 1912 to Phillip S. Ordway and Ruth Kneeland Ordway. They had 5 children: Richard C. Ordway, Nelson K. Ordway Frank S , William, b. 1924 and Helen: 1927-1983.
Nelson Ordway married Ernestine Lavernon Johnson, daughter of Patrick Henry Johnson, 1879 - 1949 and Hester Johnson, in Oregon.

'08–A son was born to Mr. and Mrs. Philip S. Ordway on October 26. He has been named Nelson Kneeland Ordway.
Published in the Yale Alumni Weekly on November 15, 1912

Claremont Man Shines
Nelson Kneeland Ordway, of Claremont, Calif., was one of three students of the Yale School of Medicine to receive degrees Cum Laude, the secretary's office announced today.
Published in the San Pedro News Pilot on June 221, 1938

Thanks to rosie mcnaughton (47201993) for help with this memorial.

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Birth	26 Oct 1912	New Brunswick, Middlesex County, New Jersey
Immigration	11 Jun 1930	New York, New York
Marriage	23 Aug 1936	Vale, Malheur County, Oregon - Ernestine Lavernon Johnson
Census (family)	Apr 1940	Philadelphia, Philadelphia County, Pennsylvania - Ernestine Lavernon Johnson
Immigration	10 Sep 1963	Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, Brasil
Immigration	1966	São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil
Death	31 Dec 1997	Scottsdale, Maricopa County, Arizona
Obituary		Scottsdale, Maricopa County, Arizona

Spouse	Ernestine Lavernon Johnson (1911 - 1975)
Child	Living

Notes