Col. Everett K. Spees Jr., MD, PhD and M.Div., died on Jan. 11 at the Martha’s Vineyard Hospital after living with multiple myeloma for seven years. He was 90.

Dr. Spees was born into a military family at Chanute Field in Ill. in 1933. He was the second child of Everett K. Spees Sr. and Maude Rexroat Spees. He grew up in Denver, Colo. and attended the University of Colorado at Boulder.

After achieving a medical degree from Duke University at the age of 19, Everett began his career in the Army Medical Corps. He spent 20 years in the Army, attaining the rank of colonel.

He continued his medical work at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, focusing on the then-new field of transplant surgery. Later, he moved to Denver to work at University Hospital, where he helped found the kidney transplant program, and then at Presbyterian St. Luke’s. He was a founder of the Colorado transplant registry, which facilitated matching lifesaving organs with recipients and contributed to the national system we have today.

After his initial retirement from medical practice, he was called back to the Army multiple times for further surgical work. He relished his chance to return to wearing the uniform and to sharing his experience and learning from younger colleagues, as well as transforming the lives of his patients.

A lifelong autodidact who genuinely enjoyed work, Everett was always learning new things and applying new skills. After retiring from medical practice, he studied to become a deacon, and then a priest, in the Polish National Catholic Church. In this capacity, he held services, comforted patients with last rites and provided counseling and storytelling to vulnerable children and teenagers.

In the last 10 years of his life, he and his wife, Ann Boyer, moved to Martha’s Vineyard full time. On the Island, he developed a keen interest in genealogy and family history, and conducted extensive research and writing regarding his family’s Hessian ancestry during the Revolutionary War. He was a vital and active member of a weekly writer’s group, for which he constantly wrote articles with great zest. Many of his articles were published in scholarly journals. He continued his writing and research until the very end.

He was a kind, good-natured and gentle man with a tremendous intellectual capacity, a wealth of knowledge on numerous subjects and a caring soul. He was a beloved father, grandfather, colleague and friend to so many people.

Everett is survived by his children, Sally Langlois, Everett 3rd, Robert and Ben; his brother, Bill; his stepdaughter, Lee Scriggins; and his grandchildren, Lucy and D Scriggins.

He was predeceased by his wife, Ann Boyer, and stepson, Tom Scriggins.

A service will be held at Abel’s Hill Cemetery in Chilmark on Tuesday, Jan. 16 at 2 p.m.

Memorial contributions may be made to the Multiple Myeloma Research Foundation at development.themmrf.org.