Charles Edwin Brighton, M.D.

Charles E. Brighton, M.D., a resident of Santa Fe for the last 47 years, passed away on January 1, 2018 at the age of 100 years. Throughout his life, Dr. Brighton was proud of the fact that he was born on Friday the Thirteenth in July of 1917. He always recited this coincidence as testimony to just how fortunate his life had been in spite of the day of his birth. Whenever his birthday happened to fall on that auspicious day—and there were surprisingly many—they were celebrated with extra gusto. He was born and raised in Coffeyville, Kansas, a small town that suffered greatly from the Depression and was also on the eastern edge of the Dust Bowl. His parents, Ira Emmett and Anna May Brighton, owned a furniture store and a two-story house located on a brick paved street close to the center of town. Every morning, the future Dr. Brighton would rise from his cot on the sleeping porch, and he would sweep inches of accumulated dust from the floor of the porch and from the veranda beneath it. That screened-in porch was his bedroom both winter and summer throughout his youth. After graduating from high school and junior college in Coffeyville in 1937, he made the bold decision to attend medical school at the University of Chicago. Nobody believed that he would actually graduate, but that disparagement only made him try harder. Five years later, he was awarded a Bachelor of Science degree as well as a degree for Doctor of Medicine. Armed with that approval, he began his internship at University Hospital in Oklahoma City. He had decided to become an orthopedic surgeon, and the next four years were spent in graduate medical training in that specialty, finishing at the Campbell Clinic in Memphis, Tenn. in 1945. He also received special training in cerebral palsy, club feet, and poliomyelitis. In 1943, while still at University Hospital, he met and married a newly minted registered nurse, Ruth Cleo Dawson, the daughter of an oil field worker in Oklahoma. This union gave birth to four children, David, Phyllis, Cynthia, and Paul, who together produced seven grandchildren and, in turn, eleven great grandchildren. Cleo Brighton passed away here in Santa Fe in 2013 at the age of 91. They were married 70 years. Late in 1946, Dr. Brighton entered into the clinical practice of orthopedic surgery at the Springer Clinic in Tulsa, Oklahoma. He was subsequently certified by the American Board of Orthopedic Surgery as well as elected to membership in the American Academy of Orthopedic Surgeons. In addition, he started an outpatient club foot clinic for crippled children at St. John’s Hospital in Tulsa, and for the next 25 years he held crippled children’s clinics throughout the state of Oklahoma. He was also medical director of the Children’s Convalescent Home which specialized in the treatment of cerebral palsy. Throughout his medical career, Dr. Brighton spent considerable time studying human disability and how that disability related to a patient’s obtaining gainful employment. In 1971, he realized his dream of living and of practicing medicine in Santa Fe. Having made many visits to this city, as well as to a family ranch located 15 miles west of Cebolla on the Chama River in Rio Arriba County, he wanted to spend the last years of his career in Northern New Mexico. He bought a house on Garcia Street, and his office was located on Paseo de Peralta across from the foot of Canyon Road. Seven years later, after nearly 35 years of continually performing surgeries, Dr. Brighton’s hands had become too arthritic for him to go on practicing, and he retired from active practice. For the next four years he was the Medical Director of the Professional Standard Review Organization which dealt with Medicare and Medicaid activities for both the Federal and State Governments. Eventually, he designed and built a large solar house on Cordova Lane where he and his wife lived for many years, before finally retiring to Kingston Residence on Rodeo Road. He was a lifetime member of Saint John United Methodist Church and an honorary member of Rotary International. Dr. Charles Brighton led a very long, productive, and valuable life. Funeral Services will at 10:30am on Friday, January 5, 2018 at the Kiva Chapel of Light with Internment to follow at Santa Fe Memorial Gardens.