Dr. Russell Herring was
a member of the
White Hall Ruritan Club
Obituary from the Daily Progress website:
Russell Edward Herring, Jr., died on Sunday, February 23, 2014, in Charlottesville, Virginia. Dr. Herring was born on January 4, 1920, in Richmond, Virginia. He graduated from John Marshall High School and the University of Richmond Class of 1940, where he was a member of the cross country team and Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity.
He was briefly, before entering the Army after Pearl Harbor, a graduate student in the Biology department at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. After serving in World War II as an artillery officer in North Africa and Italy with the 85th Infantry Division, he taught school for a short time in Fishersville, Virginia.
He then entered the Medical College of Virginia on the GI Bill. Upon graduation in 1950, he established a general medical practice in Crozet, Virginia, where he was one of two physicians serving all of Western Albemarle County. In 1961, he began a residency in radiology at the University of Virginia’s School of Medicine, and completed his medical career as a radiologist in Hendersonville, North Carolina, and Martinsville, Virginia, retiring in 1985.
He was preceded in death by his wife of 67 years, Nancy Jane Sellers Herring of Wilson, North Carolina (died 2010); a daughter, Nancy Herring Goodman of New York City (died 1982); and two grandsons, Michael Harris Goodman (died 1981) and William Patrick Herring (died 2014). He is survived by his three sons, Robert Herring and wife, Anne Mayberry, of Arlington, Virginia, Russell T. Herring and wife, Patricia Herring, of Waynesboro, Virginia, and Stephen A. Herring of Ashland, Virginia; three grandchildren, James A.M. Herring and Emily E.M. Herring of Arlington, and Cori Killian of Houston, Texas; and two great-grandchildren.
After his discharge from the Army in 1945, Dr. Herring served in the United States Army Reserve, retiring with the rank of colonel in 1974. He was extremely grateful to his country for providing him with the means (the GI Bill) to become a physician and to buy his first house.
Like many Virginians of his generation, he was an avid Civil War buff, and always kept a framed portrait of Stonewall Jackson on the wall of his house. He counted as one of the redletter events of his life the day he shook the hand of Douglas Southall Freeman, the author of the multi-volume opus, Lee’s Lieutenants.
Dr. Herring was a long-standing and very active member of Crozet United Methodist Church – shoving boxes around at the church’s monthly Food Bank until he was well into his late 80’s. He was also a member of the White Hall Ruritan Club; he particularly enjoyed their apple butter-making festivities in the Fall.
Dr. Herring left strict instructions that there was to be no funeral or memorial service. “I don’t want anyone making a fuss over me,” he said on numerous occasions.
He has donated his body for scientific research.
In lieu of flowers, donations can be made to the Western Albemarle Rescue Squad or the Crozet Volunteer Fire Department – two organizations Dr. Herring admired greatly.