Charles Lindemann knew his patients well

Dr. Charles Lindemann served thousands of patients over 40 years in the Minneapolis area and became chief of staff at St. Mary's Hospital. He also served in a Colonial Church ministry at Stillwater prison and provided free care at a clinic in north Minneapolis.

Lindemann, 86, died May 29 in his sleep from heart problems at his cabin near Deerwood, said his wife.

He was a president of the former Hennepin County Medical Society. Lindemann practiced internal medicine with several partners, mostly in a converted house in south Minneapolis. Dr. Jim Mankey, 92, worked with him for about 35 years, and played golf with him.

"He was a very reliable, affable, outgoing fellow," said Mankey, who lives in the same senior housing building in Bloomington where Lindemann lived. "He was a man of his word."

Lindemann "was a fine physician who had a loving group of patients who came to him religiously," said Dr. Charles Meyer, who inherited some of those patients. "They were crestfallen when he retired."

One of those patients was Jan McKenzie Anderson of Lakeville. Lindemann treated her parents and she saw him from the time she was 19 to about age 50. He retired in 1989. She liked his patient, unhurried style.

"He remembered everything. He was always very concerned," McKenzie Anderson said. "If you came into his office feeling sick you left feeling better, [even] without any pills. His personality made you feel better."

Lindemann recalled his dad listening to patients on the phone while eating dinner at home. "One hand held the phone [to his ear] upside down, so he could eat with the other hand," he said. His dad learned to better balance work and home life in later years, Lindemann said. He said his dad was a perfectionist, which wasn't always good.

"He demanded the best from everybody in his family. It's sometimes hard to live up to that," said Shirley Grotting Lindemann, his wife of 13 years. She was widowed and married him after his first wife died of breast cancer. She said Lindemann treated her well, just like his first wife, and knew all of their combined 22 grandchildren by name and interests.