Gerard Gijsbert Bozuwa, MD

Wakefield, NH.

On Wednesday, July 26, 2017, Gerard Gijsbert Bozuwa passed away at Mountain View Community in Ossipee, NH, where he had been medical director for many years.

Gijs (Chris to his American friends) was born on February 16, 1926, to Captain Gerard G. Bozuwa and Maria Bozuwa-van Strij, both since passed, as has his only sibling, his beloved sister Janneke. Since his father was in the Dutch Navy and stationed in the Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia), his birthplace was Batavia (now Djakarta) on the island of Java.  He spent his youth alternately between the Netherlands and the Indies.  In 1942, Japan invaded Java. All Europeans were interned. Gijs was separated from his family on the day he turned 17 and entered a man’s prison camp. He volunteered as an orderly in the makeshift camp hospital. Although he had a naval career in mind, the experience put him on a course towards becoming a medical doctor.

His parents, his sister and Gijs survived the brutal war years. They almost shipwrecked on their way back to the Netherlands in 1946. Once there, Gijs had to make up for three years missed high school education. Nevertheless, he made it into medical school at the University of Utrecht.

In 1955, Gijs received a Fullbright scholarship, which he used to do an internship at Quincy City Hospital. He returned to Holland to marry Titia Wetselaar. Together, they immigrated to the US in March 1st of 1957. Two months later, their daughter Joan was born in Hanover, NH, where Gijs was doing a residency in General Practice at the Dartmouth Hitchcock Hospital.

In 1958, Dr. Howard Sawyer of Brookfield engaged him as an assistant for the busy summer months. On the first of October, that same year, Gijs started his private practice in what is now called the “Doctor’s House” in Wakefield’s Historic District. It remained his home till the day he died.

Gijs had a zest for life. His sense of adventure never left him. He volunteered for Care Medico for a month in Honduras in 1968, and again a month in Indonesia in 1972. He played with the idea of joining the Peace Corps, but he remained loyal to the local community that had embraced him.

He made his mark as a chief of staff at Huggins Hospital and later as a trustee. He was president of the Carroll County Medical Society for many years and president of the New Hampshire Medical Society in 1987/88. The Town of Wakefield chose him Citizen of the Year in 1992. He was a member of the Wakefield Chamber of Commerce. He founded the Netherlands-American Medical Society and was its first president.

Gijs closed his private practice on July 1, 1994. He continued as medical director for the Mountain View Nursing Home through 2004.

Gijs loved people, loved practicing medicine, and loved his family, his community and his many friends, his native country as well as his adopted country. The great sadness in his life was the loss of his daughter Joan at age 29.

He leaves his wife Titia after 61 years of happy marriage; his son Gijsbert Paul and his daughter-in-law Colleen Barr Bozuwa, of Norwich, VT; and their three daughters: Johanna, Alexandra and Sarah.

A service to give thanks for his well-lived life will be held at the Wakefield Congregational Church in Wakefield, NH on Friday, August 4th, at 11:30. A reception to follow in the Bozuwa backyard.

In lieu of flowers, if desired, memorial donations may be made to Mountain View Community, 93 Water Village Rd, Ossipee, NH, 03864; or to the Wakefield Congregational Church, 2718 Wakefield Road, Wakefield, NH 03872.

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