Henry Scott, 80, family physician

Henry Scott, 80, of Wyncote, a family physician in Nicetown for almost 40 years, died Thursday at Abington Memorial Hospital of complications from a stroke.

While growing up in Nicetown, Dr. Scott worked as a shoe-shine boy at Broad Street and Erie Avenue, and earned enough to give his mother $500 for a down payment on the family's first home. A former sharecropper, she inspired him to become a physician and was encouraging when he eventually returned to Broad and Erie to establish his medical practice, said his son Donald.

He often treated needy patients free, his son said, and tutored students in math and science after work. He created special back braces for patients and had an interest in psychiatry and hypnosis, his son said.

Dr. Scott was on the staff of Temple University Hospital. He was a physician for the School District of Philadelphia and in the mid-1970s he was medical director of Norristown State Hospital.

A graduate of Simon Gratz High School in Philadelphia, he earned a bachelor's degree from Lincoln University. During the Korean War, he served in the Army as a chemist at Valley Forge General Hospital.

After his discharge, he worked as a chemist for several years before earning a medical degree from Howard University in Washington. He interned at Mercy-Douglass Hospital in Southwest Philadelphia.

When he retired from medicine in 1991, Dr. Scott managed and developed residential real estate. He was handy at renovations and repairs, his son said.

"He was a brilliant Renaissance man. He was a skilled tennis and saxophone player and vocalist who wrote lyrics, poetry, and even published cartoons," his son said.

Since 1952, Dr. Scott had been married to Grace Middleton Scott. They met at a picnic in Fairmount Park.

In addition to his wife and son, he is survived by sons David, Henry Jr. and L. Glenn; a sister; five grandchildren; and one great-grandchild.

The funeral will be at 11 a.m. Friday at Zion Baptist Church, 3600 N. Broad St. Friends may call from 9:30 a.m. Dr. Scott was a Sunday school teacher and taught evening health classes at the church. Burial will be in Ivy Hill Cemetery.