Dr. McCreedy and his family came to Niles in 1975.

He practiced medicine as a partner in OB/GYN Associates, located at 9 S. St. Joseph Ave., Niles, until his retirement in 2002 following a bicycling accident that injured his shoulder and elbow, affecting his ability to perform surgeries.

While delivering numerous babies and providing surgical needs to his patients, he was always community-minded, supporting athletic activities in the area by sponsoring teams in the Optimist Soccer League and helping do physicals for athletes. He is presently scorekeeper for the boy’s varsity basketball team at Niles High School.

He also served as a mentor through Big Brothers/Big Sisters for a local student, from elementary school through his graduation, and still maintains some contact with the young man. He went on a medical missionary trip to Haiti and was active in the local affiliate of Habitat for Humanity, from its inception in this area in 1987 until its dissolution in 2016.

Upon his retirement from his medical practice, he traded his surgical tools for carpenter ones, managing the construction of eight new homes and one rehab for the HFH affiliate, for which he received only a stipend.

Since coming to Niles, the McCreedy family has been active members of Wesley United Methodist Church. Dick is a long-standing choir member, lay leader, a longtime member of the board of trustees and an all-around “Mr. Fixit” on Wesley’s aging building. If he cannot fix it, he arranges for someone who can.

He also can be found cleaning the eaves troughs at the parsonage, mowing around the church or parsonage, or doing snow removal around the entrances of the church on Sunday morning for worship.

On his day off from the doctor’s office, he might have been found at the church cleaning a storeroom or checking on the boilers.

He and his wife are also very faithful about checking on and visiting shut-ins.

— Eleanor Fisher