Dr. Harold F. ‘Doc’ Burton
Owner of Towson Veterinary Hospital for decades, World War II veteran had vast real estate portfolio
Dr. Harold F. “Doc” Burton, a veterinarian who owned the Towson Veterinary Hospital for three decades and presided over an expansive real estate portfolio, died Aug. 31 of undetermined causes at his Abingdon home. He was 102.
“Doc was sharp as a whip with a self-deprecating sense of humor, which won him a lot of friends,” Mike Ruby, a friend and editor of The Chronicler and Villager in Hereford, said.
“Sometimes, he could turn that sense of humor into a vicious attack,” Mr. Ruby said. He shared that once, Dr. Burton was called “only a veterinarian” as opposed to a medical doctor and replied, “I could be your doctor because I know how to treat jackasses.”
“He did not suffer fools gladly,” Mr. Ruby said with a laugh. “While his humor could be disarming, he often held his fire.”
Harold Francis Burton, son of Edmund Burton, a blacksmith and farrier, and Olive Burton, a schoolteacher, was born in Baltimore and raised in a home at York and Mount Carmel roads in Hereford.
The nearby family farm, where as a youth he milked cows, eventually became the campus for Hereford High School.
He was 16 when he graduated from Sparks High School in 1938 and then attended the University of Maryland, Baltimore before earning a degree in veterinary medicine in 1943 from the University of Pennsylvania.
Drafted into the Army during World War II, he served with the Veterinary Corps and was stationed in Baltimore. His mission was to help bring a rabies epidemic under control, family members said.
After the war ended, Dr. Burton made four trips across the Atlantic Ocean aboard ships as a member of the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration, overseeing the care of captured wild horses and assisting farmers with their animals.
While an associate professor of pathology at the University of Maryland, he met and fell in love with the former Betty Duval, whom he married in 1947.
Two years later, he purchased the Towson Veterinary Hospital on York Road, where his wife assisted him in his practice during those early years.
One of Dr. Burton’s
clients was Dr. Alfred Blalock, chief of surgery at the Johns Hopkins Hospital, who, with pediatric cardiologist Dr. Helen Taussig, developed a procedure to correct what was called the blue baby syndrome, a heart defect in newborns.
Dr. Blalock’s assistant was surgical technician Vivien Thomas, a Black man who had worked with him in his animal laboratory at Vanderbilt University from 1930 until 1941, when Mr. Thomas joined Dr. Blalock at Hopkins.
Mr. Thomas, who had no medical degree, performed the surgery on dogs hundreds of times, proving that it was not lethal and could be applied to humans. Dr. Burton anesthetized and monitored the health of the dogs for Mr. Thomas in the surgical laboratory at Hopkins.
Dr. Burton, family members said, fondly recalled the many hours he spent with Mr. Thomas learning “techniques from him that were far superior to my own surgical suite.”
When he encountered challenging surgeries in his own practice, Dr. Burton would hire Mr. Thomas to assist him, according to a biographical profile submitted by Dr. Burton’s family.
At the time, Hopkins Hospital was highly segregated, and the only positions of authority that Black people generally held were in custodial or kitchen services.
In 2000, Dr. Burton’s grandson Emory successfully underwent the surgery perfected by Dr. Blalock and Mr. Thomas.
In addition to maintaining his hospital, Dr. Burton traversed the rural roads of Baltimore, Harford and Howard counties, day or night, to care for farm animals.
In addition to cats, dogs, rabbits and the occasional circus elephant, he cared for thoroughbreds at Pimlico Race Course.
“He was brilliant. He could look into an animal’s eyes and see what was wrong, and he made a good living out of treating animals,” Mr. Ruby, a friend of 31 years, said. “He had a lot going for himself.”
Dr. Burton sold his practice in 1978, went into semiretirement and finally retired from veterinary medicine in 1980. He then focused on the real estate assets he had accumulated with a son and a son-in-law.
His vast portfolio included residential units in Towson, commercial retail centers in Hunt Valley and a more-than300-acre plot of land in York County, Pennsylvania.
In 1992, Dr. Burton created the Hereford Community Plan, a guide to development that set design standards and size limits for future structures that would be built there, while at the same time preserving the village’s rural charm and quaintness.
Dr. Burton, who earned his pilot’s license, would often land his plane in the field of a client and ceased flying only after suffering from severe hearing loss.
He then became interested in off-road motorcycle racing and accumulated many trophies along the way, family members said. He was a member of Baltimore Trail Riders.
A self-described workaholic, Dr. Burton released stress by flying and biking, and he continued riding dirt bikes into his 60s and was a street biker until well into his 70s.
Dr. Burton and his wife left Lutherville in 1997 and moved to a home overlooking the Bush River in Abingdon.
He was a member of Kiwanis International, a founding member of Chesapeake National Bank and a charter member of Valley Baptist Church in Lutherville.
Dr. Burton supported Star Community in Hagerstown, which cares for his son; Horses for Heroes; and Heifer International.
Services were Saturday at Evans Funeral Home in Monkton, with interment at the Hereford Baptist Church Cemetery, a few steps from his boyhood home.
In addition to his wife of 75 years, he is survived by two sons, Russell W. Burton of Jacobus, Pennsylvania, and Paul M. Burton of Hagerstown; two daughters, Barbara B. Abbott of Lutherville and Patricia B. Bowden of Hanover, Pennsylvania; and three grandchildren.