NORTH CREEK -- Dr. John G. "Jack" Maines, a former Tompkins County medical examiner, psychiatrist and family doctor, died Friday, April 8, 2005, at Stratton VA Medical Center in Albany as a result of brain cancer. He was 82.

Dr. Maines treated patients in Ithaca for more than four decades before retiring his full-time practice in 1996.

In 1999, he moved with his wife, Phyllis, to North Creek, a rural Adirondack community where the Maines family had built a vacation home in the 1970s. He had been associated with the Tompkins County medical examiner's office from the mid-1970s until 1996; and as a medical examiner he had been responsible for making medical rulings on the county's unattended deaths, accidental deaths and homicides.

Dr. Maines moved to the Ithaca area in 1956, opening a small office downtown.In 1973, he left psychiatry and opened a general practice near the old Tompkins County Hospital, and in later years moved the practice to an office in the family home at 844 Cayuga Heights Road in the village of Lansing.

Dr. Maines was born on Dec. 1, 1922, the son of John Guy and Edna Maines.

He grew up in Ossining, where his father worked in a variety of occupations,including owning an ice delivery business and later, a service station.

Dr. Maines received his medical degree and psychiatric training at Duke University in North Carolina, where he also met his future wife, Phyllis Gordon, who was a journalism student at the university. They married in 1945,and raised a family of six - Alexander, Elizabeth, John, Julia, Andy and Russell.

During the Korean War, Dr. Maines served as a psychiatrist at the U.S. Naval Base in Corona, Calif. He continued his psychiatric training at Willard Psychiatric Center in Seneca County. In the mid-1950s, he was director of mental hygiene at a clinic in Glens Falls. He subsequently moved to Ithaca at the invitation of Dr. Marjorie Murray Burtt, a psychotherapist.

Even after his official retirement, Dr. Maines continued his medical work as a member of CompHealth in Salt Lake City, Utah. The group shuttles physicians to mostly remote areas of the United States, where they are needed. The Adirondacks served as Dr. Maines' home base.

In the 1970s, when soaring oil prices drove up home-heating costs, Dr. Mainesdesigned and built a coal stove that supplemented the oil heat of his housewith the cheaper fuel. He and his wife turned this into a business, the Great Ithaca Stove Co., which operated out of the Maines family garage and sold coal stoves for home-heating use. Although the business never took off, Dr. Maines continued to tinker with coal stoves as an alternative heat source until his
hospitalization last month.

Dr. Maines is survived by his wife, Phyllis; six children: Alexander Maines of McLean, Va.; Elizabeth Maines of Brooktondale; John Maines of Fort Lauderdale, Fla.; Julia Maines of Brooklyn, Andy Maines of Vernon Rockville, Conn. and Russell Maines of Rochester; a brother, Robert Maines of Lakewood, Colo.; and several grandchildren, nieces, and nephews.

Services, with full military honors, will be held at 2 p.m. Tuesday, April 12,at Saratoga National Cemetery, 200 Duell Road, town of Saratoga.

There are no calling hours scheduled.

Memorial donations in his name may be made to the charity of one's choice.

Arrangements are by Simone Funeral Home, Inc., 105 Lake Ave, Saratoga Springs.

--Published in the Post-Star on 4/11/2005.