This GoogObit was written by my brother Kevin, in tribute to a woman he and his family knew from their old parish. His daughter Moira, who shares the name of the deceased, was very good friends with her son Tim when they went to school together at Northside Catholic Academy, St. Gertrude Campus.
MOIRA TOBIN WICKES, 46
Children’s Memorial specialist created orthotics department
By Barbara Sherlock
Tribune Staff Writer
March 12, 2003
There is a vivid image of Moira Tobin Wickes shared by her friends, family and colleagues.
It is of a dynamic, petite woman moving through life with a child often resting on her hip and a smile on her face
Mrs. Tobin Wickes, 46, died of cancer Monday, March 10, at Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago
The Chicago mother of five tied her love of children and her passion for healing into a 25-year career at Children’s Memorial Hospital. Among her accomplishments was creating the hospital’s department of orthotics, a branch of science that deals with supporting and bracing weak or ineffective joints or muscles. She served as the department’s supervisor for many years before becoming its director in 1998
“I have never known anyone else who was so energetic and hardworking and at the same time friendly, cheerful and lighthearted,” said Mary Weck, her colleague and friend for more than 20 years. “Her enthusiasm and spark touched everybody in this hospital.
Whether it was one of her five sons, any of the dozens of nieces and nephews or the thousands of pediatric patients she saw at the hospital, children always found a place in her arms and an eager listener to their tales.
“She just had this great love for children and always wanted to be a healer, and deep down felt she could be the most effective as anntist,” said her husband, John.
The two met in 1982 at a dessert party hosted by a mutual friend in Chicago. “I remember walking in the room and seeing her,” her husband said. “She was beautiful and so filled with life with this wonderful, hardy, infectious laugh.” They married in 1983.
While studying at Mundelein College in Chicago for a degree in biology, Mrs. Tobin Wickes began volunteering at Children’s Memorial in its child psychology department. A short while later, she moved to the physical therapy department and, after her graduation in 1978, became an aide who helped the therapists apply splints to the young patients, Weck said.
“She saw a need for orthotics, so she went to Northwestern University Medical School, became certified as an orthotist, and in 1982 began building this department,” said Weck, a physical therapy pediatric specialist at the hospital.
In 1992, Weck and Mrs. Tobin Wickes started the hospital’s serial casting program, which was featured last year in a PBS television documentary.
The program, an alternative to surgical intervention, incorporates gait training, muscular strengthening and orthotics with the common therapy technique of fitting patients with plaster and plastic casts that are revised on a weekly basis over several months.
The casts gradually train the patient’s foot, ankle and leg into proper alignment. The other components Weck and Mrs. Tobin Wickes added to the program reinforced the work done by the casts.
“The casting got some notoriety, but it isn’t half as impressive as the work she did building our whole pediatric orthotics department,” Weck said. “She started here as an orthotist all by herself within the physical therapy department and grew it into this huge, busy department.”
The pediatric orthotics department became a separate unit in 1986 and is now staffed by five orthotists, a resident, seven physical therapists, eight technicians and an in-house laboratory.
Mrs. Tobin Wickes was the seventh of 17 children born to Noreen and Frank Tobin.
“Somehow my parents were able to instill this unique quality where we all felt very close,” said Virginia Payne, one of Mrs. Tobin Wickes’ younger sisters. “They did it with unconditional love, and Moira really embodied what we learned from our parents. Her greatest gifts were her strong ability to love, family values and family closeness.”
Other survivors include her sons, John Jr., Stephen, Timothy, Edward and Robert; 10 brothers, Terry, Frank, Michael, Robert, Daniel, Timothy, Patrick, David, John and Edward Tobin; five other sisters, Noreen O’Neill, Kathleen Tobin, Rose Bradshaw, Margaret Heneghan and Ann Tobin; and 51 nieces and nephews.
Mass will be said at 1 p.m. Wednesday in Holy Name Cathedral, 730 N. Wabash Ave., Chicago.