Dr. Richard Hermes, the obstetrician-gynecologist who ushered literally thousands of Lawrence infants into the world, died Friday of prostate cancer. He was 89.

Dr. Hermes first started practicing in Lawrence in 1950 and kept delivering children until he retired in 1985.

“He had little black books that he had written down every baby he had delivered,” said Kris Hermes-Pruitt, one of Hermes’ six children. “There were over, I think, 16,000 names in those. He had them for every year he was a physician.”

Marjory Hermes, the doctor’s wife, said his patients often came to her to comment on how pleased they were with his bedside manner.

“When he talked to them he never rushed them,” Marjory Hermes said. “He let them talk it out. After he retired, I know a couple people who said to me, ‘You don’t suppose he’d go back to work just long enough to deliver my grandchild, do you?'”

The accumulated total of Dr. Hermes’ work meant that he never had to look far to find a life he’d touched. Marjory recalled that she and Richard used to attend high school football games together, and Richard would flip through the roster and say, “Well, let’s see. I delivered that one, and that one, and that one …”

His relatives recalled Dr. Hermes as a fun-loving and sometimes ornery man away from the office. Hermes-Pruitt said her father often used his love of flying as a way to test his daughters’ suitors.

Obituary: Richard L. ‘Dick’ Hermes, Lawrence

“Whenever we would have dates, he would torture them,” Hermes-Pruitt said. “He would take them up flying and turn the plane upside down, just to see if they had the stamina to survive it.”

A memorial gathering for Dr. Hermes, 89, will be at 7 p.m. Wednesday at Warren-McElwain Mortuary.