Images of Old Hawaiʻi

  • Home
  • About
  • Categories
    • Ali’i / Chiefs / Governance
    • American Protestant Mission
    • Buildings
    • Collections
    • Economy
    • Missionaries / Churches / Religious Buildings
    • General
    • Hawaiian Traditions
    • Other Summaries
    • Mayflower Summaries
    • Mayflower Full Summaries
    • Military
    • Place Names
    • Prominent People
    • Schools
    • Sailing, Shipping & Shipwrecks
    • Voyage of the Thaddeus
  • Collections
  • Contact
  • Follow
You are here: Home / Prominent People / Carl Frederick Reppun

August 16, 2017 by Peter T Young 5 Comments

Carl Frederick Reppun

Born in Nice, France, March 29, 1883, Carl (in early years ‘Karl’) Frederick Reppun was the son of Frederick William and Fredericka (Koene) Reppun.

Carl’s father was of Swedish descent and his mother Dutch, but both subjects of Russia in the Baltic province of Riga, Latvia, where the two families had lived for 200 years.

He was well traveled in Europe and appeared to enjoy an outdoor life with many activities such as riding, skiing, hiking and sailing.

Reppun was educated in the schools of Nice, France, and Cassel, Germany, before entering and graduating with a medical degree from the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universitat, Medizinische Facultat, Munich, Bavaria, in 1910.

In 1911, he married Emily Jane Lewis of Llein, Wales, in London, England. Carl and Emily honeymooned in Norway by taking a hike through the wilderness.

He took a further degree in 1912 from the University of Moscow Faculty of Medicine, and did post-graduate work in Vienna. He became a medical doctor.

In 1913, he had several career options: he could have become an apprentice to a Moscow surgeon or he could have chosen offers to set up a practice of medicine in Archangel (within the Arctic Circle), or in Irkutsk on Lake Baikal in far-eastern Siberia.

He chose to be the only physician in the mining or steel mill town of Tirljian which is on the Siberian side of the Southern Urals between European and Asiatic Russia.

The town of Tirljian was located approximately 50 +/- miles from Byeloretsk, to the southwest on the Byelaya (about 30-35 miles as the crow flies). With a population at that time of around 20-30,000, it was large enough to warrant its own hospital. There was no railway through Tirljian and all the roads were dirt.

The hospital complex was located at the edge of a forest whereas the town itself was about a mile away (twenty minutes by horse) to the east “down a gentle hill”.

The town was visible from the hospital/house. The hospital was a one-story log building with a capacity of around 50 beds. The house had an enclosed courtyard.

There were additionally servants quarters, a storehouse, stables with a covered portion for the carriages, and housing for farm animals. “Our house faced away to a fenced-in garden, beyond which was the forest on one side, fields and a grassy slope downhill to the village.” (Fred Reppun; Cupertino)

At the outbreak of World War I, Dr. Reppun was practicing medicine as a mining company doctor in the village of Tirljian, in the Ural Mountains between European and Asiatic Russia. He was the only doctor in a radius of 50 miles.

Being a Russian subject, he was mobilized into the Czar’s army, but remained in Tirljian as the head of the hospital, converted into a military one for the care of the wounded shipped back from the front.

When the Russian Revolution came in 1917, Dr. Reppun was chief of the hospital; he then had occasion to treat both the royalist Cossack wounded and the Bolshevik wounded, depending upon which side happened to be in local control.

The Reppuns escaped eastward in one carriage with one horse, the baggage being in another cart driven by a peasant and his family, they traveled a thousand miles over the Siberian steppes, going along the least frequented byways to Omsk.

At Omsk, the Reppuns met the advance point of the American Red Cross, which had come there to set up a large hospital under the direction of Dr. Arthur F. Jackson of Honolulu.

Reppun was immediately commandeered to assist the Red Cross doctors in their tremendous task. As the Red Cross and the American Expeditionary Forces withdrew toward Vladivostok 3,000 miles away, the Reppun family went along. Mrs. Reppun became a matron in charge of one of the Red Cross nursing homes in Vladivostok.

While in Vladivostok, the family reviewed options as to where to re-locate. They considered Japan, China and the Philippines, along with Hawaii

Due to, but due to the influence of Dr Jackson and Riley Allen of Honolulu, they opted to try Hawai‘i. In mid-1920, the Reppun family finally evacuated Russia aboard the last ship taking American personnel to Tsurugu, Japan.

They traveled across Japan, stopping for a short stay in Kyoto, then on to Nagasaki and thence to Honolulu aboard the Army transport S.S. Sheridan. Two weeks later on July 4, 1920, they sailed on the Army Transport “Sheridan” for Honolulu, and stayed there.

Dr. Reppun first started practice in Honolulu with the late Dr. Bert Mobbs on Beretania Street. In 1923, he went to Kaneohe as Government Physician of the Ko‘olaupoko-Waimanalo District, and as physician for Libby, McNeill & Libby at Kahalu‘u.

In 1927, he gave up the Kaneohe practice completely. Following his one and only visit to the mainland, in 1937, Dr. Reppun suffered serious injuries in a car accident from which he never fully recovered. He died on June 7, 1940, at The Queen’s Hospital, at the age of 57. (Reppun; Hawaii Medical Journal, 1966)

The Reppuns had three sons: ‘Frederick’ and Eric, born in Russia, and Arthur, born in Hawaii in 1921.) Eric was manager of the Kona operation of Robert Hind, Ltd. on the Big Island and Arthur was with Pan-American World Airways in Tokyo.

John Iorwerth Frederick (‘Frederick’) Reppun also became a doctor. In 1968 the Honolulu County Medical Society named him Medical Father of the year. In 1974, he was honored by the Hawaii Medical Association at the Association as Physician of the Year. Dr Frederick Reppun was my doctor when I was a kid growing up on Kāne‘ohe Bay Drive.

Carl Frederick Reppun-HawaiiMedJournal
Carl Frederick Reppun-HawaiiMedJournal

Share this:

  • Click to email a link to a friend (Opens in new window) Email
  • Click to print (Opens in new window) Print
  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window) Facebook
  • Click to share on X (Opens in new window) X
  • Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window) LinkedIn
  • Click to share on Reddit (Opens in new window) Reddit
  • Click to share on Tumblr (Opens in new window) Tumblr
  • Click to share on Pocket (Opens in new window) Pocket
  • Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window) Pinterest

Like this:

Like Loading...

Related

Filed Under: Prominent People Tagged With: Hawaii, Carl Frederick Reppun

Comments

  1. John FitzGerald says

    August 16, 2017 at 7:40 am

    Aloha Peter,

    I knew a Dr. Reppun on Molokai in 1949- 1957. Which Dr. Reppun would that have been?

    Aloha,

    John FitzGerald
    Hakalau, Hawaii

    Reply
    • Peter T Young says

      August 16, 2017 at 11:32 am

      Following WWII, John Iorwerth Frederick Reppun (generally known as Frederick Reppun) was on Lanai 1946-1948, then relocated to Molokai. After 7½ years, he moved to Oahu, took over the rural Kaneohe practice of Dr. Fiore, and was in general practice on the Windward side starting in 1956.

      Reply
  2. Helen von Tempsky says

    August 16, 2017 at 8:46 am

    Dr Reppun was our Molokai doctor for many years. He delivered our first child in 1954.

    Reply
  3. Polly FitzGerald Dye says

    August 17, 2017 at 2:13 am

    Uncle Fred (Reppun) and family and Uncle Eric (Reppun) and family very close and dear friends of ours, Twink and Phoebe FitzGerald family on Molokai…oh the fond memories!!!

    Reply
  4. Dale says

    August 2, 2021 at 11:33 am

    In 1925, my father was introduced into this world by Dr. Carl. Later, Dr J.I.F. Reppun became our doctor in Kaneohe, well into the 1970s. He was a kind and caring doctor who, after finishing his daily duties, made several house calls over the years, often late into the evenings.

    Reply

Leave your comment here:Cancel reply

Images of Old Hawaiʻi

People, places, and events in Hawaiʻi’s past come alive through text and media in “Images of Old Hawaiʻi.” These posts are informal historic summaries presented for personal, non-commercial, and educational purposes.

Info@Hookuleana.com

Connect with Us

  • Email
  • Facebook
  • LinkedIn
  • Twitter
  • YouTube

Recent Posts

  • Pacific Bakery and Hotel
  • Halo
  • Origin of Species
  • Pan Am
  • From Ocean to Plate
  • Hawaiian Kingdom Constitution and US Governance Documents
  • About 250-Years Ago … Declaration of Independence

Categories

  • Prominent People
  • Schools
  • Sailing, Shipping & Shipwrecks
  • Economy
  • Voyage of the Thaddeus
  • Mayflower Summaries
  • American Revolution
  • General
  • Ali'i / Chiefs / Governance
  • Buildings
  • Missionaries / Churches / Religious Buildings
  • Hawaiian Traditions
  • Military
  • Place Names

Tags

Albatross Al Capone Ane Keohokalole Archibald Campbell Bernice Pauahi Bishop Charles Reed Bishop Downtown Honolulu Eruption Founder's Day George Patton Great Wall of Kuakini Green Sea Turtle Hawaii Hawaii Island Hermes Hilo Holoikauaua Honolulu Isaac Davis James Robinson Kamae Kamaeokalani Kamanawa Kameeiamoku Kamehameha Schools Lalani Village Lava Flow Lelia Byrd Liliuokalani Mao Math Mauna Loa Midway Monk Seal Northwestern Hawaiian Islands Oahu Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument Pearl Pualani Mossman Queen Liliuokalani Thomas Jaggar Volcano Waikiki Wake Wisdom

Hoʻokuleana LLC

Hoʻokuleana LLC is a Planning and Consulting firm assisting property owners with Land Use Planning efforts, including Environmental Review, Entitlement Process, Permitting, Community Outreach, etc. We are uniquely positioned to assist you in a variety of needs.

Info@Hookuleana.com

Copyright © 2012-2024 Peter T Young, Hoʻokuleana LLC

 

Loading Comments...
 

    %d