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Alumni Profile

Joseph L. Steinem

Dr. Steinem is the small-town doctor with the big heart. For 55 years he served the town of Connersville in sickness and in health. His recent retirement leaves a void to fill.

When IU graduate Dr. Joseph Steinem retired recently, the town of Connersville, Ind., lost more than just a doctor, it lost a pillar of the community. He was the first person many of the town's inhabitants saw in this world.

"The part of being a doctor that I have enjoyed the most is delivering babies. I have lost count of how many I have delivered, but it's typically a very happy time," says Steinem. "One time, I remember delivering a baby and I realized that I had delivered both sets of parents, the grandparents, and the nurse who was taking care of the baby."

Growing up in Norwood, Ohio, Steinem wasn't sure if he would get the chance to practice medicine. "I had always thought I would like to be a doctor, but my father was an engineer and it didn't pay much. The Navy and the GI Bill made it possible to go to school."

He enrolled in the government-sponsored accelerated medical education program in 1945 and was sent to Bloomington, Ind. "Basically we were squeezing four years' work into three years," says Steinem. "The freshman year was in Bloomington and only 65 out of 112 students made it to the sophomore year. It was pretty rigorous." For his second year, he moved to Indianapolis, where he met his wife, Judith. She was studying to be a nurse, and they were married within a year of their first meeting.

The Steinems moved to Connersville in 1953. "We bought our house long distance, but we had seen it when I was last on leave," says Steinem. "It made sense because we had in-laws in Kokomo, Ind. and Cincinnati. Connersville is halfway between the two. And, because Dr. Ashworth (the town doctor) had just passed away, they also had a need for a doctor."

For 27 years Steinem was the team doctor for the football and basketball teams at Connersville High School. "We won the state championship in 1972 and 1983. I never missed a game when I was in town," says Steinem. "My son played football and we had three children on the swimming team."

Now Steinem is enjoying bringing the past back to life. He is busy organizing old slides and transferring them onto CDs for his family to enjoy. Some of the slides date back more than half a century to the time when he first started caring for the people of Connersville.

"I really appreciated the opportunity I had here in Connersville and I enjoyed it," says Steinem. "The family practice has been most satisfying — other parts of the profession pay more, but this has been very rewarding."