Frederick C. Green III, DO

Frederick Claremont Green III, DO, 86, of Bettendorf, passed away on December 25, 2024, at UnityPoint Health --Trinity hospital in Bettendorf with family at his side. Visitation with Ann Green and Family is Saturday, January 18, from 2-4 pm, in the Community Room at Palmer Hills Independent Living, 2617 Maplecrest Rd, in Bettendorf. Parking is plentiful.

A musical Requiem will be held at Trinity Cathedral on Saturday. February 22, at 10:30 am, with a luncheon following the burial rite and interment of ashes in the churchyard (garth). The family welcomes your presence, prayers, and comfort in their time of mourning and remembrance.

Fred was born on July 9, 1938, at his family home in Waynoka, Oklahoma, the eldest of four children. His parents, Frederick Claremont Green II, DO, and Olga Ruth (Brozovich) Green courted as students at Drake University in Des Moines. Fred met his future wife, Ann Janette Kubicek, over the piano at a sorority house at Iowa State where they were both visiting, although she was a student at Drake University in Des Moines where he was also working at the time. He asked her out for coffee and “the rest was history.” Music, coffee, cats, and dogs were regular features in the family homes where they raised three children: Michael, Stephanie, and Christopher. Fred and Ann, both pianists, also sang in the Trinity Epicopal Cathedral Choir and the Oratorio Society of Augustana College. Together they attended concerts with family in tow all over the Quad Cities and nurtured in each of their children a love for the arts.

Fred graduated from Alva High School (Oklahoma) in 1956 and Northwestern State College (Alva), in 1960, with a major in chemistry. Following Ann’s graduation from Drake University, Fred and Ann married in Mason City, Iowa, in 1963. Fred graduated from the Des Moines University College of Osteopathic Medicine in 1964. After an internship in Davenport, Iowa, Fred enlisted in the US Army and served in Cleveland, Ohio, where he was responsible for medical exams for prospective soldiers. In 1969 Fred joined the medical practice of William A. Kuchera, DO, in Davenport. He continued a solo practice of family medicine in 1980, seeing patients at his office, making house calls, and doing rounds at three hospitals and several area nursing homes. He readily rose to deliver many babies in the middle of the night. Later in his career he worked at Davenport Community Health Care and after he “retired” (the first of many times), he served as a locum tenens physician in VA Hospitals and Clinics in Watertown, NY; Fargo, ND; and Hot Springs, SD. The colder and snowier, the better.

Fred learned to play the violin at age 3 and the piano at age 5. Considered to be a child prodigy, he nurtured his gift of music throughout his life. Anyone living with him listened (begrudgingly or delightedly) to him practice for hours on end, from his siblings and parents, to his wife and children, to the residents and staff of Holiday Palmer Hills Independent Living where he and Ann shared their last home. Fred offered a legacy concert at age 85 with Music Students/Etude Club where he played from memory the first movement of Beethoven’s Appassionata Piano Sonata No. 23, Op 57, a piece he learned by heart at age 16.

Along with his family, music, and medicine, Fred had many loves: flying (single and twin engine planes), chocolate, sports, and being out in nature. Fred learned to ice skate and downhill ski with his children and took up the jogging craze of the ‘70s, completing more than 15 Bix runs. He would attend any ball game in the Quad Cities, usually with a stop at Whitey’s for a chocolate shake on the way home. In his later years, solo, he canoed, camped, and cross-country skied. He swam daily at the YMCA until the final months of his life when he would still drive to a park to watch the dogs play and work calculus and physics problems in his car. 

Fred loved the Lord and would attend church as the Spirit moved him. He grew up Roman Catholic; raised his family in the Episcopal Church for the sacraments, community, and music; returned to the Roman Catholic Church later in life for the familiar comfort of the Mass; sang in the Baptist choir in Fargo; and sometimes rounded out the day of worship at an Assembly of God service for the preaching. He studied the Bible on his own and prayed constantly for his family and the world.

Fred’s insatiable love for life continues to inspire those who are left to treasure his memory: His wife, Ann Janette (Kubicek) Green; his children, Michael Green, Stephanie Green, and Christopher (Clarissa Thomas) Green; his grandchildren, Liam, Hugh, and Doreen; his sister, Lyndeth Claire (Green) Nicholson; his brother-in-law, Frances Hajek; and his nieces, Monica, Catherine, and Angela. He is preceded in death by his parents; his sister, Gretchen Claire (Green) Hajek; and his brother, David Allen Green.

Memorials may be made to the R. Richard Bittner YMCA, the Davenport Municipal Airport, and the Deanery School of Music of Davenport, Iowa. 

Online remembrances may be expressed at www.hmdfuneralhome.com.