Despite the ratty raccoon coat he wore and the bathroom plunger he carried in local parades, Harold Whitcomb wasn’t the town crazy.
He was Aspen’s best-known medical doctor – so rare when he arrived there in the late 1950s that he did some veterinary work as well.
The whimsical Whitcomb, who died March 2 at his home, was 79.
Whitcomb was as unorthodox in his medical practice as his parade outfit, becoming one of the town’s early practitioners of holistic medicine.
He believed in biofeedback, acupuncture, good nutrition, vitamins and homeopathy before they were widely known and accepted.
Early on he believed that just handing out aspirin for pain “was leaving out something,” said his son, Oliver Whitcomb, of Sun Valley, Idaho. “And that was the human condition.”
“He had an uncanny sense of things and could figure out what was wrong with people or predict the sex of a baby,” his wife, Polly Whitcomb said, laughing.
He also believed that stress and depression caused a lot of physical ailments and he was as likely to give people a hug as a handshake.
“He had a lot of energy and intensity,” said his son.
Whitcomb eventually shared a practice with Phyllis Bronson, who has a doctorate in biochemistry, and they founded the Aspen Clinic for Preventive and Environmental Medicine.
He would sometimes counsel people about personal problems. If they needed medicine, he started with the “least toxic,” said Bronson.
One of his biggest gifts to patients “was that he listened and he was empathetic,” she said. “He believed in helping them create harmony in their lives.”
Dick Butera said Whitcomb was a dedicated friend who “wasn’t happy unless he was helping someone.”
“We called him Weird Harold, but he was a genius,” said Butera, an Aspen businessman. “Going to his office was a healing experience, not a normal doctor visit.”
Whitcomb helped lead the successful drive to raise money for Aspen’s first assisted living center.
Whitcomb was an accomplished bass player and played his red and white bass in a ragtime band, the Dirty Old Men.
Harold Whitcomb was born Jan. 30, 1927, in Harrisburg, Pa. and earned his medical degree at Temple Medical School in Philadelphia.
He first marriage, to Yolande Shaw, ended in divorce, and in 1968 he married Philippa (Polly) Bent.
In addition to his wife and son Oliver, he is survived by another son, Michael Whitcomb of Denver, and two daughters, Deirdre Morgan of Brawley, Calif., and Dorothea Bent of Basalt; eight grandchildren; his sister, Martie Sterling of Tucson, and brother, Robert Whitcomb of Emmaus, Pa.
Staff writer Virginia Culver can be reached at vculver@denverpost.com or 303-820-1223.
