Inducted in 2015
Physician; Cardiologist
Father of Prep Graduate

Robert Feeley Gomprecht was a man who devoted his life to understanding and caring for many, many human hearts. He also happened to be a cardiologist. Of all his many talents, his greatest was his ability to see the needs of the person in front of him and to respond to those needs with genuine concern and careful attention. Whether in his devotion to his family, in his practice of medicine, or in his support of the high school which he felt had done so much to shape him, Robert Gomprecht proceeded from his profound belief that love was the essential element in all growth and healing. He lived out the ideals of the magis and cura personalis long before they entered the mainstream of today’s Jesuit vocabulary, and he left an indelible mark on all those whose lives he touched.

Born in the Bronx on March 6, 1924, Robert Gomprecht was the only child of Clarence Gomprecht, the manager of a movie house who would later work in a print shop, and Charlotte Brown Gomprecht, a registered nurse. Young Bob grew up a mile west of the Rose Hill Campus on University Avenue and attended St. Nicholas of Tolentine Grammar School before entering the Prep as a freshman in September of 1937.

During Bob’s grammar and high school years, there was a fourth member of the household: his maternal grandmother, Sarah Feeley Brown Bahr. It is no exaggeration to say that he adored his grandmother and that he was the apple of her eye. In fact, it was Sarah who would make it possible for Robert to attend the Prep — with his father between careers on account of the Depression, she would return to work as a policewoman in the 52nd Precinct to help pay the tuition.

Robert Gomprecht loved every aspect of his Hughes Hall years. “Gompo,” as his classmates called him, was a four-year debater, served on the Athletic Council and on the Cheering Squad, managed the Tennis Team, and studied with the Shakespeare Academy. He was involved with the Dramatics Society in his junior and senior years, stepping onto the stage of Collins Auditorium in the roles of Marullus in Julius Caesar and Mr. Maylie in Oliver Twist. A man of faith even his youth, Bob also devoted time to the spiritual and charitable facets of Prep life as member of the Sodality of the Blessed Virgin Mary and a Knight of the Blessed Sacrament.

Robert graduated from Fordham Prep in 1941, Fordham University in 1944 and New York University College of Medicine in 1947, completing his internship and residency in internal medicine and cardiology at St. Vincent’s Hospital in Manhattan. From 1951 to 1953, he served his country as a flight surgeon and an instructor of aviation medicine at Gunter Air Force Base in Alabama. He returned to New York and was eventually appointed director of medicine and chief of cardiology at Misericordia Hospital in the Bronx in 1961.

It was during his many years of studying the heart that he met the young woman who would make his skip a beat: Nurse Kathleen Joann Welsh from Mahopac, New York. They married the day after Christmas in 1946 while he was still a medical student at NYU, and raised five children in their Bronxville, New York home: Robert, Jane, Ann, Ellen and Paul. At one time or another, both sons would find their way onto the Prep rosters, carrying on the legacy that Great-Grandma Sarah had set in motion a generation before.

A member of the Class of 1965, the younger Robert would go on to have a celebrated 42-year career as a Prep teacher, coach and administrator, including a 21-year stint as the longest-serving principal in school history. And lest the Gomprecht girls be out-Marooned, daughter Ellen would earn her own Rose Hill degree, graduating from the University in 1975.  Including Ellen’s sons, five of Dr. Gomprecht’s seven grandchildren would attend the Prep, and great-grandsons would begin to follow a generation later in the early 21st century.

Though he was proud of having spent his college years at Fordham University, and would think back on his time at NYU fondly, Dr. Gomprecht always felt a special affection for Fordham Prep. It was at the Prep that he had solidified the academic foundation, trained the self-discipline, and calibrated the moral compass which would serve him so well in both his personal and professional lives.

His gratitude to the Prep led him to serve for many years as physician to the Rose Hill Jesuit Community. Previously, healthcare for the Jesuits had been inconsistent, and Dr. Gomprecht advocated tirelessly for an improved and more structured system. With the support of two consecutive University presidents (then, presidents of the Prep, as well), Frs. Laurence McGinely, SJ and Vincent O’Keefe, SJ, medical care for the Fordham fathers, especially for the most venerable and infirm among them, was greatly enhanced.

Later, when the Prep legally separated from the University and faced financial adversity and institutional uncertainly, Robert would join with other alumni to keep the school afloat. Like fellow Hall of Honor inductees Robert Abplanalp ’39, Gerald McNamara ‘41 and the former governor of New York, Malcolm Wilson ’29, Dr. Robert Gomprecht is remembered in school history as one of the individuals whose efforts and campaigning helped to secure the Prep nothing short of a future.

Dr. Gomprecht was a man of great faith, a faith that sustained him and animated everything he did throughout his long and distinguished career, from which he retired in 2004 at the age of 80. During his life, he spoke through his gentle actions and his use of his remarkable professional gifts of the loving power of God. His patients considered him not only an extremely competent and caring physician, but also a friend and confidant.

Moreover, Robert believed that in gratitude for all the opportunities he had been given, he had a responsibility to pass on his knowledge and experience to the next generation. One of his greatest joys was teaching — medical students, residents, fellows, attending physicians, nurses, technicians and anyone who was interested in the science and art of medicine. During his tenure on the faculty of New York Medical College, he trained hundreds of physicians, many of whom with great respect and affection would forever address him as “Professor.” He was scholarly, self-confident and honest to a fault, and yet, despite all these gifts, he was a gentle man of great humility.

Robert Feely Gomprecht passed away on December 17, 2006.

Joining his beloved wife, children and grandchildren in mourning were generations of patients, students and colleagues; members of the Friendly Sons of St. Patrick and the Knights of Malta to which he had long belonged; neighbors from St. Joseph’s Parish in Bronxville, where he had been both a parishioner and a trustee for decades; and classmates and friends from the Fordham Prep community and beyond. Though they were gathered in grief, there was also sense of celebration — celebration of the remarkable life of a remarkable man whose memory and spirit they would carry in their hearts always.