HomeDr. Jose Gerardo 'Gerry' Fernandez
3/22/09 Dr. Jose Gerardo 'Gerry' Fernandez
Dr. Jose Gerardo 'Gerry' Fernandez died suddenly, at home, on March 22, 2009 at the age of 48.
Services will be 11:00 a.m. Thursday, March 26, 2009 at Our Lady of Mt. Carmel Catholic Church in Herrin. Monsignor Ken Schaefer will officiate. Visitation will be from 5:00 p.m. until 8:00 p.m. at Meredith-Waddell Funeral Home in Herrin. A prayer service will be held at 5:30 p.m. Wednesday at the funeral home. In accordance with his wishes, after services, he will be cremated.
He was born in Cebu, Philippines on March 13, 1961, the youngest of 7 children. In 1980, he started dating Joy, his first and only girlfriend and the love of his life. They got married in 1988 and moved to the US to make a better life. Their children, Karissa and Kristopher, arrived to make his family complete.
Gerry trained in Internal Medicine and Infectious Diseases at Cook County Hospital in Chicago. When he finished, he moved to Red Bay, then Florence, Alabama to work in private practice. But he doted on his family and wanted to spend more time with them so he decided to work for the Marion VA Health Care System in 1999, where he bragged about being able to get rid of his beeper starting at 4:30 PM and on the week-ends.
He was a member of Our Lady of Mount Carmel Catholic Church in Herrin and proudly sang with the Schola. His interests were varied and sometimes fleeting, but he had a "how-to" book for every new thing that he tried. He liked to sing karaoke and listen to NPR.
Gerry will be remembered for many different things. His patients will think of an intelligent and compassionate physician who has been described numerous times as a "great doctor and a good man". His co- workers knew him as fair, hard-working and someone you could depend on to do what was right. His friends will remember a man of honesty and integrity who always tried to set a good example for his children.
His wife will miss how he always made her laugh and how they finished each other's thoughts. His children will miss a kind, loving, generous man who could talk to them about any topic under the sun, valued their opinions, never laughed at them and who was a presence at academic and athletic events, beaming with pride at jobs well done.
On the last day of his earthly life, Gerry went to Mass as he did every Sunday with his family, splurged on steak and eggs for breakfast, bonded with his son and daughter while washing his new car, changed the burned out light bulbs around his house, flirted with his wife and in general spent an ordinary Sunday getting ready to go back to work on Monday. It was an ordinary day, ending in the death of an extraordinary man, who is now with God.
His family will miss him greatly and will feel his influence on them every day for the rest of their lives. They treasure and are thankful for every moment that they spent with him.
He is survived by his wife, Joy Evangelista Fernandez, his daughter Karissa, and his son Kristopher, all of Marion, Illinois. He is also survived by his siblings and their spouses, Ging and Jim Bateson of Chapel Hill, North Carolina; Tessie and Francisco Fernandez of Cebu, Philippines,; Maria Teresa and Jack Jaca of Cebu, Philippines; Margie Fernandez of Oxnard, California; Estela and Raymund Fernandez of Cebu, Philippines; Grace and Vicente Fernandez of Cebu, Philippines; numerous nephews, nieces and cousins, in-laws, and his father-in-law, Rey Evangelista of Marion, IL. Also surviving him is a special group of friends from Southern Illinois: Mellie and Boyco Chatto, Garnette and Milo Resaba, Emma and Macky Sunga, Ann and Albert Butalid, Lynn and Chic Ezpeleta, Luisa and Joel Vercide, and their children. During his career at the VA, his staff, Patty Bowers and Angie Reinhardt, were his solid support.
Gerry was a firm believer in the value of education. To honor him, instead of flowers, the preferred form of remembrance is memorials made to the Our Lady of Mount Carmel School Adopt-a-Student Program or the IMSA Fund for Advancement of Education.