Dr. Milton Shoss

Milton "Mike" Shoss, 91, died peacefully in his sleep Wednesday, May 6, 2015, at his home in Houston.

Born a first-generation American on Sept. 14, 1923, Milton grew up above his family's dry-goods store on Canal Street in Houston.

He graduated at 16 from Sam Houston High School, then from Rice University and Baylor Medical School. He trained in radiology at Jewish Hospital in St. Louis, where he met a pretty nursing student, Jane Duncan, who became his beloved wife of 59 years and who predeceased him in 2006.

Milton founded Shoss Radiology Group in Cape Girardeau, where he and Jane lived 36 years, raised their family and became civic leaders.

His radiology practice covered hospitals and prisons throughout Southeast Missouri, and he developed a national reputation. He was known for solving numerous cases of the day at the annual meetings of the Radiological Society of North America, and he became one of the country's earliest specialists in nuclear medicine, training at the federal facilities in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, in the 1960s.

Mike and Jane retired to Hilton Head Island, South Carolina, in 1986. They traveled the globe together, circumnavigating it twice on ships.

In addition to his wife, Milton was preceded in death by his parents, Becky and Max Shoss; and an older brother, Isidore.

He is survived by a daughter, Cynthia Shoss (husband David Watson), who is a lawyer at Sutherland Asbill & Brennan in New York City; a son, Robert Shoss (wife Gretchen Heyer), who is a business consultant at Performance Enhancement Group in Houston; a granddaughter, Lucy Jane Watson (fiancé Seth Litt), who is a Teach For America corps member teaching in the South Bronx; and two younger brothers, Joseph and Samuel Shoss of Houston and their families.

Milton devoted much of his career to saving and prolonging the lives of cancer patients, and he was a cancer survivor himself. All three of his brothers were also doctors.

There will be private services in Houston and Hilton Head Island. Funeral arrangements in Houston will be by Waldman Funeral Care, 713-875-4811; and at Hilton Head Island by The Island Funeral Home, 843-681-4400.

His family encourages donations in his memory to the Cancer Frontier Fund (for innovative research) at barnesjewish.org.