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MASSERMAN PHOTOGRAPHY
multi-generational families
The Mendelson-Levines:
Generations Of Medicine
HANNAH LEVINE JN DIGITAL/SOCIAL MEDIA EDITOR
A
s I was growing up, my family
didn’t have what I would call “nor-
mal” dinner conversations. While
other kids’ parents were asking questions
about basketball practice and violin les-
sons, my parents were discussing blood
cultures and stroke symptoms. Soon,
my sister joined in with an interesting
story about stool while my brothers and
I twirled our pasta and ignored the gross
parts.
When friends came over to dinner, I’d
say the same thing to each of them: “Mine
is a family of doctors.”
See, a lot of my family members are in
the medical profession and, while I never
felt much pressure to join the pack, that
didn’t stop the Mendelson-Levines from
creating a medical empire, complete with
late-night phone calls questioning every-
thing from a splinter to a heart attack
to casting a broken arm in the kitchen
before school.
It all started with my zadie, Herb
Mendelson, the father and grandfather
to inspire us all. According to my grand-
mother, Phyllis Mendelson, you don’t
have to search hard to see why he inspires
so many. “Look at him,” she says. “He
takes care of everybody.”
Following in my zadie’s footsteps was
my mom, Diane Levine, and my uncle,
David Mendelson. Soon, my other uncle,
Jeffrey, and another, Steve, put on some
The extended Mendelson-Levine family with its three generations of doctors
scrubs. Then Uncle Steve married Aunt
Alice, another doctor. And somewhere
along the way, my mom married my dad,
Donald Levine, another doctor, and had
my sister, Miriam Levine, who became,
you guessed it, another M.D.
For those of you keeping track, that’s
eight doctors across three generations.
And if you ask my cousins Ella and Shira
Mendelson they’re not necessarily averse
to the medical profession, either. If they
stay on the medical path, that would
bring the Mendelson-Levine total doctor
count to 10 doctors, four generations and
a lot of “An apple a day can’t keep the doc-
tors away from me” jokes that stopped
pleasing crowds around generation two.
Let’s go back to the beginning. Herb
Mendelson graduated medical school in
1958 and finished his residency in 1964.
He then went on to create Orthopedic
Surgeons PC, which went through many
iterations before becoming its current
name and practice, Mendelson Kornblum
Orthopedic and Spine Specialists.
All of my uncles and my aunt help
to complete the Mendelson side of the
Mendelson Kornblum Orthopedic and
Spine Specialists practice, helping to
perform many of Southeast Michigan’s
broken bone surgeries, hip replacements
and more.
“For me to join a family of orthopedic
surgeons was quite fascinating,” says Dr.
Alice Mendelson. “I was very proud to
join them because I thought they gave
quality care and treated people with
state-of-the-art treatments that were
both advanced and proven to be effective.
I was happy to follow in their steps.”
My mom, Diane, took another route,
entering the medical profession as an
internist and professor of medicine at
the Wayne State University School of
Medicine. When asked, she said she
became a doctor for the usual three rea-
sons. “One: I was good in science. Two:
I like people. Three: I wanted to make a
difference in the world by helping people.”
She continued to say, “But the real reason
is that I wanted to be just like my dad.
Every day my dad came home excited
about his day. He shared wonderful sto-
ries about how he made people feel bet-
ter, and I wanted to be him. And that’s the
truth.”
My dad, Donald, an infectious disease
doctor and also a professor of medicine,
worked with my mom at the WSU School
of Medicine. Both of my parents helped
inspire my sister’s journey because she
also became an infectious disease doctor,
and she loves teaching medicine just as
much as she loves teaching my niece how
to brush her hair and my nephew how to
say “dog.”
I won’t say my sister is already head
first into trying to get her children to
From the DJN
Davidson Digital Archive
S
ometimes a story begins with one idea and ends with anoth-
er. First, I read about the closing of Hazel Park Raceway after
69 years of operation and thought maybe I’d see what I could
find in the Davidson Archives and write about that. Then, JN
Publisher and Detroit Jewish News Foundation President Arthur
Horwitz tells me: “I think Herb Tyner was one of the owners of
Hazel Park.” So, now, I’m writing about a Jewish guy, who just hap-
pened to have a connection to the track.
The archives did not have much about
Hazel Park itself. There were several items
about events at Hazel Park, such as the
Single Extension Group from Temple Israel
or Harmony ORT having a “Night at the
Races” in the 1990s or the Alpha Zeta Omega
Pharmaceutical Fraternity raising money for
scholarships at the track in 1975, but there were
no stories about Hazel Park itself.
However, I learned a lot about co-owner
Mike Smith
Detroit Jewish News
Herb Tyner. Sort of a classic self-made person;
Foundation Archivist
as a youth, Tyner sold newspapers and shov-
eled snow and did whatever he could to make
86
April 19 • 2018
jn
a buck. A bright student, he graduated
from Detroit Central High School at age
16, and then earned undergraduate and
graduate degrees from Ohio State. Tyner
then parlayed his education and experi-
ence into becoming a very successful
Jewish businessman in Detroit.
Along the way, he was co-owner with
Bernard Harman of Hazel Park Raceway for 62 years and formed
a leading property management firm, Hartman & Tyner. And
he was one of the owners of the Detroit Pistons with William
Davidson in 1974.
Tyner and his wife, Suzanne, were also great community lead-
ers, providing funding for such causes as the Jean and David
Tyner Religious School at Temple Israel, named in memory of
Herb’s parents, and the Suzanne and Herbert Tyner Center for
Cardiovascular Intervention at William Beaumont Hospital in
Royal Oak. Herb Tyner died in 2015. •
Want to learn more? Go to the DJN Foundation archives,
available for free at www.djnfoundation.org.
become doctors, but I will say my niece
is barely 4 and she has at least one set of
scrubs and a few doctor kits on hand, just
in case.
As for the rest of my family, even the
ones who were not interested in medicine
were inspired by our family’s work
ethic and incredible passion for helping
others. Dr. Jeffrey Mendelson’s daughter,
Lily, said, “Having doctors in the family
showed me how medical knowledge
could open doors for me in other places
rather than the medical field.”
For the non-medically inclined, the
long hours spent waiting at the hospital
for a family member to “just see one more
patient” were worth it to experience a
smiling face praising a dad, aunt, uncle
or grandfather for replacing a hip and
allowing a person to walk again or
helping someone through an infection.
It’s those moments that make the
late nights, the midnight phone calls,
the plaster-filled kitchens and the odd
dinner conversations with a crazy family
of doctors who wear scrubs like they’re
going out of style all worth it.
To my dozens of cousins in medicine
or not, thanks for being my family. And
to my zadie, happy 60th anniversary as a
doctor. Look what you’ve created. •
Hannah Levine is the JN’s digital/social media
editor — and not a doctor!