Remembering Dr. Bob Bader

Longtime Lodi resident Bob Bader almost always had a smile on his face. He loved to laugh and was quick with a joke.

That is how he will be remembered. He passed away in Pittsburgh Oct. 26 at age 86 after a four-year battle with Alzheimer’s disease.

Dr. Bader was known in Lodi for serving his patients as a chiropractor for more than 60 years from his office on South Fairmont Avenue. But he never looked at his days as going to work. He was just going in to help his friends feel better. At times his patients could not pay him for his services, but that did not stop him from treating them.

He was also a believer in the mind and body being deeply connected in terms of healing and talked to his patients about staying positive. He regularly gave out copies of the book “It Works” which focused on the idea of envisioning happiness and prosperity in order to make it so.

While he certainly took pride in treating his patients, his life was not just his practice. He loved to paint, doing watercolors of scenes from around Lodi or pictures from National Geographic. He did artwork for the Bass Derby and cover art for the menu at Foster’s Bighorn in Rio Vista. He was also dedicated shutterbug with a sharp eye for nature.

His garage always housed at least one sports car as his need for speed was well known to his friends, perhaps less known to the local gendarmes. The garage was a mancave long before the term became part of Realtor parlance. It was immaculate, complete with a rug where his latest speed machine rested. For one of his cars, a 1987 BMW, he would pull it out of the garage onto his driveway when it rained, allowing mother nature to wash his car before pulling it back into the garage to carefully hand dry it.

The Rotary Club was a source of pride and he was past president, often regaling friends and family about the good work the organization did in both Lodi and internationally.

He loved to golf and could be found teeing it up at Elkhorn Golf Club as wells as Forrest Lake Golf Course. When a shot might travel in the wrong direction, he would drop another ball down and say to his partner, “Let’s see how Arnold Palmer might have hit that shot.”

He seemingly kept several golf club makers in business as his office often had four or five sets of clubs. His search for the perfect drive resulted in a barrel being filled with more than a dozen drivers. Callaway Golf Company’s stock took a hit when Bob hung up the spikes.

He was also a lover of language and a columnist for this newspaper, writing about snippets from Lodi, its history and always about its people; folks he called friends.

Visitors to his ranch house on Highway 12 could always count on his refrigerator housing his latest edition of Strudel, but not the sweet version. Instead it was a dish with onions, potatoes and dough that his mother made that he spent years trying to recreate.

But most of all he was a storyteller. He could weave a tale, starting out casually with an observation about something. Soon it was tied to a friend of his or a recent event, or something that had happened 25 years before.

He is survived by his daughters Cindy Bader and her husband Bill Meagher of Somerset, Kathleen Stevans and her husband Joel Stevans of Pittsburgh, his granddaughter Victoria Stevans of Los Angeles, his niece Amy Bader of Portland, OR, his nephews Chris Bader of Lodi, John Brawn of San Jose, Robert Brawn of Lacey, WA, and his sister-inlaw Marge Bader of Lodi and his former wife, Joan Bader Cudd of Napa. He was preceded in death by his father Otto Bader of Lodi, mother Rose Bader Lachenmaier of Lodi, sister Arle Brawn of Sunnyvale, CA and brother Harry Bader of Lodi.