Homer and Edith Wolfe

Dr. Homer H. Wolfe was born on January 10, 1884, in Lathrop, California, the youngest of five children of a Brethren minister. He studied at Cooper Medical College and received his M.D. in 1909. Early in his career he worked briefly at San Francisco City Hospital before spending a season in Alaska as a physician for a large fish-canning company. After returning to San Francisco, he accepted a position on the Mendocino Coast as resident physician for the Albion Lumber Company in 1910 and operated the Albion Hospital for the next 17 years (with a 20-month interruption during his World War I service).

Wolfe’s dedication to public service extended far beyond the local community. Although he briefly enlisted in the U.S. military in 1898 and was likely discharged because he was underage, his formal military career began during World War I, when he joined the U.S. Army Ambulance Corps. He trained at Camp Crane in Allentown, Pennsylvania, and earned the rank of captain. While stationed there, he met nurse Edith S. Deibert of Egypt, Pennsylvania, who was serving on the staff of the Allentown Hospital. They were married on June 8, 1918, in Allentown. Following the war, the couple returned to Albion, where Dr. Wolfe resumed his duties at the hospital.

In late 1927, Dr. Wolfe moved his practice to Fort Bragg, joining the staff of the Redwood Coast Hospital, and he and Edith purchased a home in the city. He became a respected member of the hospital staff and a central figure in the region’s medical care, later seeing patients from an office within his home. During World War II, he again served his country, this time as a physician for the Draft Board in Fort Bragg.

Throughout his life, Dr. Wolfe was active in numerous community and professional organizations. He belonged to the American Legion’s Sequoia Post No. 96, the Fort Bragg Masonic Lodge, the Royal Arch Masons, the Order of the Eastern Star, the Lions Club, and the Mendocino-Lake Counties Medical Association. His long medical career, first in Albion and later in Fort Bragg, made him one of the Mendocino Coast’s most trusted and enduring physicians. He died at his home in Fort Bragg on March 3, 1949, following a brief illness, and was entombed at the Chapel of the Chimes in Santa Rosa.

Edith Deibert Wolfe built a life of service alongside her husband. A trained nurse, she supported his medical career from their early days in wartime Pennsylvania through many decades on the Mendocino Coast. After settling in Fort Bragg, she became an active participant in civic and fraternal organizations, including the Presbyterian Church, the Order of the Eastern Star, the Amaranth Lodge, and the American Legion Auxiliary. Widowed in 1949, Edith remained in Fort Bragg for the rest of her life. She died on October 4, 1984, at the age of 93, leaving a legacy of compassion, leadership, and community involvement that complemented her husband’s long record of public service.

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