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Obituary
David "Doc" Kauffman, 92, died April 14, 2014, in Whitefish, Montana. He was born at home on the family farm January 30, 1922. After elementary school, he worked on the family farm and was not able to afford a high school education as there were 15 in his family and times were hard. At age 21 he had worked in a sawmill and was a packer for the USFS until WWII. Doc was drafted into the Civilian Public Service Program in April 1944. He jumped with the CPS-103 unit at Missoula during the 1945 season. After the war he was visiting with fellow smokejumper Jim Brunk in Virginia. He had no aim to continue his education but Jim's parent's encouraged Doc to take advantage of the tuition free education available for his time in the CPS. He obtained his high school diploma while in college and attended Eastern Mennonite University and graduated from medical school at Hahnemann University. After Hahnemann he did internship at Sacred Heart Hospital in Spokane, WA. That done, Doc moved back home to Whitefish where he practiced family medicine for over 40 years. Among his passions were horses and hunting in the Bob Marshall Wilderness.
Kauffman was interviewed as part of a smokejumper oral history project currently housed at the University of Montana (UM) Archives and Special Collections. You may read or listen to the transcript by going to the UM digital collections here: https://scholarworks.umt.edu/smokejumpers/66/
Identifier
Kauffman_David-V_Missoula_1945
Publication Date
4-21-2014
Keywords
Smokejumping; Smokejumpers -- United States; National Smokejumper Association; Wildfire fighters; Obituaries
Disciplines
Forest Management
Recommended Citation
National Smokejumper Association, "Smokejumper Obituary: Kauffman, David V. (Missoula 1945)" (2014). Smokejumper Obituaries. 837.
https://dc.ewu.edu/smokejumper_bios/837
