Jackson Connely Moody died at his home in Silver City October 20 at the age of 90.

There will be a memorial service at the Methodist church in Silver City at 11 am October 24. Jackson was an ophthalmologist who had lived in Silver City for 40 years. Jackson defied his small town upbringing to lead an adventurous life living and practicing medicine around the world. He was born in 1925 in Harrisonville, Missouri to a hardware store owner and a music teacher. He attended Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri graduating in only three years so that he could enter the Navy during World War II. Jackson served aboard a light cruiser, the USS Dayton, as a communications officer in both the Atlantic and Pacific before being demobilized after the end of the war.

One of Jackson's naval colleagues suggested they get a sail boat and spend a year sailing the Carribean. Another suggested he join him in a fishing business in the Galapagos. He also considered becoming a jazz musician as trombone player, but instead entered medical school supported by the GI bill and graduated from Northwestern University, Chicago in 1950. He spent an additional year of training at the Illinois Central Railroad Hospital in Chicago, which had the added benefit of allowing him to ride the railroad free to New Orleans to visit jazz clubs. Jackson then moved to Kansas City, Missouri where he spent a year working as a physician at the Remington Arms factory, followed by a year of surgical training at Kansas City General Hospital. During this time he met Lenora Murray, who was from Pleasant Hill, a small town near Jackson's home town of Harrisonville. They married in 1953 and began their married life in Kansas City in a small apartment with a pull down Murphy bed. At the end of his surgical training Jackson returned to Harrisonville and started up a general practice of medicine which he continued for the next eight years. During that time Jackson and Lenora had three children.

In 1961 Jackson decided he wanted to use his medical skills to help the poor in third world countries and joined the Methodist Board of Missions. After 6 months of language training he moved the family to Bidar, a town in southern India where he worked in a small hospital where many patients arrived by camel. Bidar was an adventurous place to live with only intermittent electricity and no running water or phones. It did have large troops of monkeys, a few cobras and the occasional small pox epidemic. Their fourth child was born during this time. While in India, Jackson became very interested in diseases of the eye. When they returned to Missouri, Jackson trained in ophthalmology, a skill much needed in rural Asia.

In 1969 the family, now with 5 children, returned overseas to Kathmandu Nepal. They journeyed there on a freighter that took three months to reach Calcutta from the US. In Nepal Jackson ran an eye clinic in Kathmandu and went on eye camps into the mountains where no eye surgeon had ever been, equipped with a mobile eye hospital carried on the backs of sherpas. He later moved to Kabul, Afghanistan where he continued eye surgery and helped train local physicians. He lived there through turbulent political times including a coup d'etat which deposed the king of Afghanistan. In 1975 Jackson retired from working with the Methodist board and returned to the United States to practice ophthalmology. He settled in Silver City, which would be his home for the next 40 years, and joined Dr. Bob Sexton in the practice of ophthalmology. Silver City shared many characteristics with the towns where Jackson and Lenora were raised. Jackson lived on the same block as the Methodist church where he was a member and very active in church affairs. Jackson sang in the church choir for many years and was also active in local theater, performing in Tartuffe and playing Colonel Pickering in a production of My Fair Lady.

In 1985 Jack moved to Weligama in southern Sri Lanka, his final foreign assignment. He lived there several years where he started an eye hospital before returning to Silver City for the rest of his career. Later in life Jackson developed a great interest in nutrition, preventative health and hymn writing. Jackson is survived by Lenora, his wife of 62 years and by 3 sons, 2 daughters and 6 grandchildren.

In lieu of flowers donations may be made to Doctors Without Borders or the Methodist church memorial fund.

Bright Funeral Home is in charge of arrangements, "Traditional Services and Care for your family and friends", 210 W. College Ave., Silver City, New Mexico 575-388-1911. To send condolences login to www.brightfuneral.net