The City of Roodhouse will be honoring a late citizen on Friday with a memorial in the city Park.
A large memorial rock is set to be dedicated to Dr. Ludwig Dech on Friday at 3PM. Dech, was a citizen and medical doctor in the northern Greene County area since September 1958.
Dech, a native of Yugoslavia, grew up in Germany, earned his doctorate in Austria, and then, immigrated to the United States in 1956. According to the Greene Prairie Press, while interning at West Suburban Hospital in Oak Park, Illinois and while taking his state board exam, Dech was recruited to come to Roodhouse because the town needed a physician at that time.
According to a 2000 article in the State Journal Register, Dech estimated that he delivered more than 1,300 children in the Greene County area during his years of practice. Dech formally retired in 2001 after serving at the old White Hall Hospital and in private practice for 43 years. He was also a common figure at the local high school each year performing sports physicals for student-athletes. Dech was a lifelong lover of outdoor sports and travel. Dech passed away at the age of 92 on July 25, 2019 in Carrollton.