Lamm was asked to be the featured artist in the Sanderell Family West Wing addition of Mercer Health’s Mercer County Community Hospital, which opened in October 2018. Additional prints have been added throughout the hospital since then. Most recently, Mercer Health consciously chose to work with Lamm again, to provide art for the new Mercer Health Medical Group at Mendon location.
“I am honored to be asked to have my work in the Mendon office, for many reasons,” states Lamm. A 1970 graduate of Mendon-Union High School, Mike is also the son of Dr. Günter A. Lamm, who was Mendon’s first resident family physician.
Lamm shares: “My father received his physician’s training at the University of Rostock in Germany. At the end of World War II, he and my mother, Charlotte, moved to Africa, where he developed the surgical unit at Mercy Hospital in Monrovia, Liberia, and served as personal physician to President William V.S. Tubman.
“I was born in Monrovia in 1952. When I contracted malaria, my father chose to move our family to America in 1954. We arrived at Ellis Island in New York and lived briefly in the Bronx, before moving to Cincinnati, where my father earned medical and surgical degrees from the University of Cincinnati.”
Upon graduation in 1957, Dr. Lamm was recruited to Mendon by community leaders Glenn Rausch, Ralph Lewis, Phil Williams, Henry Drake, Ardyth Shaffer and Fred Maurer. They offered to build a medical office if he would start a family practice in Mendon. Both fulfilled their obligations, and Dr. Lamm was Mendon’s beloved doctor until his death in 1962.
Mike has also left his mark on the Mercer County area, working as an award-winning photojournalist for The Celina Daily Standard and later as a portrait photographer as owner of Studio E (film) and Mike Lamm Images (digital).
Mike’s career in photography has been highlighted with displays at the Dayton and Fort Wayne Museums of Art, and featured in numerous publications, including Professional Photographer, Ohio, and Farm Journal magazines. He is recognized as a Master Photographer by the Professional Photographers of America. His images have been featured in the ASP Traveling Exhibit to Japan, the PPA Loan Collection and Showcase publications, covers of Wright State’s Fogdog literary review and the website of New York Master Printmaker Johathan Penney.
Though retired from the portrait business, he continues to photograph to feed his visually creative mind. His work can be seen at his website at www.mikelammimages.com
“I applaud Lisa Klenke, CEO at Mercer Health, for remembering the connection between my father and the history of health care in Mendon. And, I couldn’t believe it when I found out that the provider for Mercer Health Medical Group at Mendon is Lindsay Lamm. We aren’t related, but the common thread seems more than coincidental,” Lamm concludes.
Pictured is Mike Lamm at Mercer Health Medical Group at Mendon with a plaque connecting his story and his displayed art.