Richard Avery Mayo

Richard Avery Mayo, M.D., age 95, died peacefully at his home in Hingham on September 23rd, 2021 surrounded by family and his Golden Retriever Misha.

Richard (Dick) was born in Arlington on April 23, 1926 to Robert D. and Pauline A. Mayo of Lexington. He started Dartmouth College and was drafted during WWII in June 1944 into the U.S. Army-Private First Class-101st Infantry Regiment of the 26th Yankee Division-F Company. Dick earned a Purple Heart fighting with the 3rd Army under General Patton during the Battle of the Bulge.

Upon his return to Dartmouth College in the fall of 1946 he continued to earn his baccalaureate. Dick continued his education at Dartmouth Medical School where he met Olga Kavochka who was a Registered Medical Technologist at the Mary Hitchcock Hospital in Hanover, NH. They were married in June 1950 and celebrated their 71st anniversary this year.

He spent 2 years of General Surgery at The Mary Imogene Bassett Hospital in Cooperstown, NY and started his Orthopedic Residency for 1 year at Boston Children’s Hospital and continued his residency for several years at MGH.

Dick established a private practice in Boston at MGH and Deaconess Hospital. In 1957 he and his family moved to Hingham. He started a private practice on the South Shore keeping an affiliation with the Boston hospitals. In 1961 he joined the South Shore Hospital and in 1963 he joined the South Shore Medical Clinic in Norwell. Dick was also Assistant Director to the Veterans Association during the 60s in the amputation clinic that serviced New England.

In 1965 Little, Brown and Company Boston published ORTHOPEDICS A CONCISE GUIDE to Clinical Practices by Dr. William R. MacAusland Jr., M.D. and Richard A. Mayo M.D. both instructors at Harvard Medical School. This was the first paperback medical book published.

At the age of 70 he gave up surgery and continued his office practice until age 86.

Dick is survived by his wife Olga, son Thomas, daughter Nina, daughter-in-law Sally, son-in-law John, granddaughter Christina and her husband Forrest, grandson Scott and his wife Willow, grandson Max, 3 great grandchildren Isla, Holden and Eloise.

Dick is what some friends call a Renaissance man. He was an avid sailor, boat builder, sculptor, painter, furniture maker, skier, world traveler including an adventurous solo sail from Hingham to the Azore Islands off of Portugal at age 60. A year later he sailed solo from the Azores to Bermuda where he was joined by his family for a reunion before he sailed with a colleague on the last stretch back to Hingham.

In Dick’s own words:

When the Indian-Giver takes me back

This is the way I would like best to be remembered

Sun on my face

A breeze across my cheek

And some adventures ahead

Dick’s ashes will be scattered on the ocean in a private ceremony.

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