Dr. Rybachok

Dr. Rybachok was our family doctor when I was growing up on Greene Street in Germantown. His home and office was two doors up the street at 4929. He was an all around general family practitioner that made house calls, delivered babies and took care of our family's chicken pox, tonsils, viruses, broken bones and stitched up our cuts. He was also a friend and neighbor of the family.

My memories of him were triggered because during my family research his name kept coming up on different family members' death certificates. I also remember him as being Ukrainian which of course is all over the news today because of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. 

So I looked him up on Ancestry and found out a few more things about him. Some of these things I knew and some were a revelation. His name was Taras H. Rybachok and he was born October 8, 1916. Nowhere could I find his place of birth although I didn't spend a lot of time looking. His father was Gregor Rybachok. Taras in North Philly and graduated from Central High School in 1934. His HS yearbook had references to him going into the medical field. He then went to Temple University and went on to the Temple Medical School. He graduated in 1940 and that same year married Marie Kish. He went into the Army in 1943 and stayed with the medical corp. until 1945. By the 1950 he was living and practicing in Germantown on Greene Street.

He was a good friend of my father and we often hung out in his back yard for little cook outs. He had two daughters who were a few years older than us. Louise and Terry Ann. I was friends were the neighbor boy on the other side of them. Juddy Lamos was one of the sons (Judson and Jason) of the pastor in the church next door. We were often in the backyard of the church playing while the Rybachok's were in their yard. 

He talked a lot to my father about his roots in Ukraine. Apparently his parents fled Czarist Russia which had occupied Ukraine at that time and how they made America their home. He had no love for the Soviet Union. 

I have very strong memories of Dr. Rybachok coming to our home for house calls. Our great grandparents were living in our house at the time and we was often there to visit with them for various treatments. I also can visualize his doctor's office in the basement of their house. There was a side walkway between his house and the church yard with steps down to the basement level where there was a side door into his office. I remember the smell of that place too. He treated my painful elbow problems when I was a kid but that is another story.

I never saw him again after we moved to Harleysville in 1968 and then I was off in the Navy in early 1970. When I moved back to Germantown in 1974 I saw that his family was no longer in the house around the corner on Greene Street. 

Sadly today I just found out he died on April 8, 1974.