The last time Steve Duprey saw Dr. Horace Blood was during Market Days two years ago at the grand opening of the Bank of NH Stage.
Duprey and Blood had been instrumental in renovating a crumbling eyesore into yet another prized place for entertainment, joining the Capitol Center for the Arts.
“His son and daughter brought him to that,” said Duprey, whose investments over the years have helped revitalize downtown. “He had that same laugh and the same twinkle in his eye. I was surprised he didn’t ask me for money. You absolutely needed to have him on your board.”
Blood was 96 at the time and, according to Duprey, had plenty of pep. He slowed recently and died on May 11, at 98, but not before raising money like no one else, giving money like few others, milking cows, mowing hay, leading summer camps into uncharted territory, saving antique clocks, running boards and committees, and, as an otolaryngologist, making sure eyes, ears and throats felt good.
“Farming was a big part of his life,” said the doctor’s son, Bob Blood, a financial adviser in Concord. “He also worked with the Belknap Camp, the YMCA, Rotary. Even recently I was taking him to Rotary through February. That was before COVID.”
COVID had its effect here too, leaving the doctor quarantined for three months before he could resume contact with loved ones. By then, time was short.
“He still recognized us when we got there,” Bob Blood said. “He had been in lockdown for three-plus months, and he had only communicated by phone. He was very lonely and he was sleeping a lot and he wasn’t comfortable with his breathing.”
The doctor died later that same day. When news spread, so did stories about him. For example, the doctor was a farmer, haying, mowing, milking. He supplied milk to Weeks Dairy. He made ice cream, scooping so much for so many that he developed tendinitis.
He worked the farm, following in the footsteps of his father, Robert Blood, New Hampshire’s governor during World War II.
“When I was working for his father, Horace was already a full doctor, and he would come here and mow two or three acres,” said George Cilley of Bradford, who managed the Crystal Springs Farm in East Concord for several years. Cilley worked for both Horace and Robert Blood.
“He was a lot easier to work for than his dad,” Cilley continued. “Horace and I had a good rapport, and we never hesitated to talk things over. We made the land a lot better. It was hard work, but we got a lot of satisfaction in that.”
The doctor received plenty of satisfaction himself by combining altruism with community care, creating a city that, with the doctor on board, had its private power supply of ideas, the arts and compassion.
“We had a few poor families in East Concord without health insurance,” Bob Blood said. “He’d let them bring whomever.”
Warren Emily was the doctor’s first medical partner, in Concord. He was president of Concord Rotary last year. They spoke the same language. And they gave.
“One of the most generous men I have known,” Emily said. “He would get on board with causes, and his price for office calls was among the lowest in the state. And if people did not have money, he would often barter.”
Before the doctor’s wife died 20 years ago, they threw themselves hard into leadership and visionary roles.
The doctor made a huge impact on the way summer camps were run. Once, several camps in central New Hampshire were all tied together, owned and operated by the YMCA.
The doctor was on the board of the Belknap Camp. He wondered why one central body had the right to make decisions for separate entities, perhaps with different needs.
He suggested self-determination, calling on camps to run and think for themselves. The YMCA didn’t like that, though. The good doctor was ruffling feathers.
“He wanted the idea of giving each camp their independence, no more ratification by the NH YMCA needed,” said Duprey, who was a board member for one of the other camps.
“Let each have their own board of directors and do a de-regulation. There was lots of institutional resistance. This was a wide board and they would have been giving up their assets. This was a radical idea.”
The camps, now nonprofits, are stronger than ever, Duprey said. Not surprisingly, the doctor convinced donors to leave money in their wills to buy camp property and keep the system stable.
“We now have multi-million dollar endowments to keep it affordable,” Duprey said. “The camps are stronger than ever. He was the consummate fundraiser.”
Just ask the other volunteers who brought The Capitol Center for the Arts back to life 25 years ago. At the time, lots of skeptics whispered that the project was too expensive and would never get done.
“My understanding was that there definitely was a group of citizens who got together quietly,” said Nikki Clark, executive director of the CCA. “But he was one of the people who did believe we could do it, and he gave some generous gifts.”
Former U.S. Congressman Paul Hodes, a musician and music lover, also recalls that the doctor had the cure for skepticism.
“He was pushing something that sounded like a crazy idea,” Hodes remembered. “With the endeavor we undertook, you ran across doubts and doubters, and he was always there, steady at the helm.”
Sort of like a captain, the person everyone looks to when the ship might sink. The tireless person, always ready to move forward, focus on something, do something.
The doctor also helped find the lost bell and clock that stood high on a bank downtown for decades, ringing in the time each hour.
Details are sketchy, but the doctor apparently located the two lost historical items after a fire brought the building down. They had ridden out of town on a rail from Concord’s old train station, destination unknown.
He found the parts, paid to have them reassembled, and they now stand tall in front of Bicentennial Square.
“He was a legendary community leader in Concord,” said Bill Dunlap, director of the NH Historical Society. “One of the signature things he did was bringing the clock tower back.”
Emily called him a renaissance man, saying, “He did all of his own hearing testing, all of his own allergy testing, He did surgery. He did all that.”
And he helped bring music and the theater downtown. With restrictions easing, the Capitol Center and Bank of NH Stage plan to re-open next month.
The doctor will no longer be around to enjoy it. But everyone else will.
“He was a giant from that generation of leaders,” Duprey said. “He could be impatient. He did not like long meetings with a lot of B.S. He just wanted to get things done.”