You have read the stories and obituary on the outstanding pioneer work in the cardiology field that the late Dr. Ronald R. Masden has contributed here for the last 30 years, being the first physician to perform seven different cardiac procedures. He was one of a handful of people who helped build the Jewish Hospital Heart and Lung Institute as well as the department of cardiology at the University of Louisville's School of Medicine.
Dr. Masden coached the Russians, establishing a cardiac catheterization lab in St. Petersburg as part of modernizing Russia's health-care system. He set up offices there and spent much time away from home devoting himself to bring them modern Western heart care services.
Dr. Masden set up a foundation* in 1997 to pay for training Russian health-care workers. He was the first to map the progression of cardiac catheterization starting with balloon angioplasty, then laser coronary angioplasty in 1988.
Please read all the stories about Dr. Masden's passionate devotion to and achievements in the cardiology field. He has saved many lives and has hundreds of grateful patients who personally are devoted to him. All his patients and many friends for the last three days have paid their respects to him and his family by attending the visitations at his beautiful home on Cherokee Road, where his wife Becki Winfield Masden and his children have received them.
The house, built in 1913 by Joseph and Joseph, is on the National Register of Historic Places. A green awning stretches to the street leading to a foyer that ushers guests into an ambience of elegant French antiques, soft colors and fabrics, and lovely paintings including portraits of Becki. Photographs of their life together are in silver frames. A French brass coal grate holds flickering coals below a mantelpiece with a French clock and porcelains.
Becki and their little dog, a Bichon Frise named Jacques, stand with their children to receive everyone.
Candace Masden Nassar, who was married at Deepwood in Mount Washington, was led by her father down the aisle in June of 1991 to Jaine Nassar, who works as senior director at Wyeth Pharmaceuticals in a new neuroscience department in Philadelphia. They have three children, Alexandra, Luke and Sam. Candace has an MBA from Georgia State University and is managing director of a medical spa in Philadelphia. Marc Masden lives in a historic home on a farm in Mount Washington and recently worked for FEMA in Florida doing hurricane damage repair.
John Winfield Masden of Los Angeles, dark and handsome like his mother, was wearing a black velveteen blazer, which belonged to his father who had wanted to give it to him for Christmas. John is managing and directing the distribution and sales of videos for Ventura Videos.
Catherine Masden was married at Gardencourt in November 2002 in a French Renaissance wedding to Salim Brahini, who is a metallurgical engineer and president of IBECCA Technologies in Montreal, where they live in Mount Royal Park, designed by Frederic Law Olmsted. Catherine recently graduated from a doctorate program at McGill University's School of Psychology and is currently practicing child psychology in Montreal.
The house is full of love, the true function of the heart, which Dr. Masden nurtured carefully as a husband, father and friend while he nurtured the clinical health of the hearts of his patients.
The story of their marriage is a poetic affair of the heart. It began the day they met in Atlanta 30 years ago when Becki was a student in pediatric nursing at Emory University. Ron was a lieutenant commander in the Navy's program at the Atlanta Center for Disease Control and was a Cardiology Fellow doing his residency at Emory. He taught classes to the nursing students.
Becki was in his class, which involved Ron's slide lectures in the dark. His voice was soft and his manner gentle. As the lights went out, Becki turned to a fellow classmate and said, "Wake me up before he turns the lights back on."
When Ron saw Becki, he didn't go to sleep. "He was cool," she said. On the first date they dined at a Mexican restaurant where two could have dinner for $6. "We were both broke," she said. Later when they were married, they honeymooned in Mexico.
The premiere of "Gone with The Wind" at the Fox Theater in Atlanta was in 1939 before either Becki or Ron was born but the spirit was alive in the city when they met. Ron, handsome, gallant and romantic, would have been a knockout captain in the Confederate Army and, of course, Becki at age 22 was a living Scarlett with black hair, flashing eyes and dazzling smile.
They brought a brick from the burned out old Fox Theater to Louisville. Ron needed it because he built "Tara" for his Scarlett, choosing a gorgeous site for Deepwood on a hill in Mount Washington overlooking a lake populated with stately swans.
Deepwood was patterned on a house they liked in Bardstown, modified to resemble Tara's facade where the brick was installed with a brass plaque near the front door. Inside were period French and mantelpieces, woodwork and paneling, and lovely antiques.
The glamorous couple enjoyed a busy social life, including membership at the Pendennis Club. Becki was chair of the gala for Luciano Pavarotti when he sang in Louisville. That night he said she looked like an Italian film star. Becki worked in Ron's Cardiovascular Consultants as his office assistant and also designed the interiors and the offices' opening receptions. She worked as a busy secretary also.
Becki was his helpmate, his nurse, his wife and love of his life, loyal and efficient even in his last hours. We send our love to all of Ron's and Becki's family, and to little Bichon Frise Jacques, who adored his master.
*Anchor-International Foundation