Carl Thistel, former Sheppard Pratt social work director, championed mental health programs

As a kid, Maeve Thistel could always count on her grandfather to speak to her like an adult.

Carl Thistel, the former director of social work at Sheppard Pratt Hospital, would talk with her about the meaning of death over a bowl of Cocoa Puffs. He’d ask her if she wanted chocolate milk, then a philosophical question: Should you write a book about an experience you’ve never had? A playdate with imaginary friends would come with a lesson on character development.

Those talks shaped the way Maeve, at 25, now approaches life. He taught her the value of her time, the importance of laughter and how to reframe loneliness as solitude. What it means to die may still be an open question, but Thistel’s influence on others is not.

Carl Thistel, who spearheaded community mental health and drug abuse prevention programs during his tenure at Sheppard Pratt, died Feb. 19 of Alzheimer’s disease. He was 94.

“Some people take up a lot of space in a room,” Maeve Thistel said. “My grandpa wasn’t that way. A lot of aspects of the legacy he left are very quiet, but really, really potent.”

Born Carl Irvin Thistel in Baltimore on Jan. 18, 1932, he was the third of Carl and Augusta Thistel’s four children and their only son. Family called him “Irvin” to avoid confusion with his father, a loading dock foreman.

Carl Sr. died of throat cancer when his son was 12. The day of the funeral, family asked for the boy’s first decision as the new “man of the house.” He said they should call him by his first name, recalled his son, Mark Thistel.

In his youth, Carl Thistel worked as a newspaper delivery boy and theater usher. He attended Baltimore Polytechnic Institute but “was a terrible student,” his son said. He once got in trouble for making a voodoo doll of a teacher in shop class.

“He just had a lifelong problem with authority and with process,” his son said.

Carl Thistel joined an ROTC program to help him finish high school at age 19. When he was drafted into the Army in 1952, he started as a tank commander.

He served in the Fulda Gap in Germany during the Cold War. Mark Thistel said his father told stories of trading cigarettes for vodka with Russian soldiers who felt the same sense of dread and distaste for war.

At the end of the day, “we’re all just people trying to do the best that we can,” Mark Thistel said. It’s a lesson his father carried into his career.

After serving two years, Carl Thistle was honorably discharged and returned to Maryland. He worked briefly as a lab technician and crossed paths with Johns Hopkins University professors who helped him pursue higher education. He became the first in his family to graduate from college.

“That’s when my dad discovered that the world was a big and beautiful and interesting place — full of great literature, great music, great thinkers,” Mark Thistel said.

After graduation, he attended the University of Maryland School of Social Work, where he met his future wife, Georgia “Jerrie” Woke. She was smart and thought Thistel would make a good father, their son said.

They shared a sense of humor and dreams of having a stable family, said their daughter, Kirsten Held. Thistel proposed at Druid Hill Park, and the couple wed in 1964.

They moved to a rowhome in North Baltimore and welcomed their two children. Thistel loved his hometown and never wanted to leave, his daughter said.

“He would often describe it as a discoverable city,” Held said. “Baltimore is extremely different from one neighborhood to another.”

Held said her father was an affectionate, adoring parent who guided his children instead of telling them what to do. He had a slew of elaborate nicknames for her, and she called him “Daddy” until the day he died.

“He was a very gentle and kind person,” Held said. “You just felt safe with him.”

Thistel worked begrudgingly for the state for several years before he was recruited by Sheppard Pratt in 1972 to oversee the Comprehensive Drug Abuse Program.

His staff loved him — and especially loved his annual Christmas parties, Mark Thistel said. The program lost funding in 1986, and he became a social work director during a time when the hospital was prioritizing outpatient care. He helped design and establish the Northern Baltimore County Community Mental Health Center.

When he was later asked to reorganize the department, he recommended the elimination of his own position. He then moved to a frontline social work role at the mental health center before retiring in 1996.

He never considered himself better than those he treated, Mark Thistel said: “He just said, ‘The only difference between me and them is circumstance.’”

Carl Thistel also had a keen sense of humor that sometimes manifested in the most ridiculous of situations, said Robyne Lyles, his daughter-in-law.

“He really saw life as a series of those slipping-on-a-banana kind of cartoons,” she said. “You better find it funny, because otherwise, it’s miserable.”

Carl Thistel wore a button-down shirt and dress shoes almost everywhere — even to mow the grass at his daughter’s farm. Once, he hopped on the tractor with his wallet in his pocket; his cards and cash were soon shredded and scattered everywhere.

Another time, during a family outing to a pig farm, he walked straight into a manure pit. He flailed his arms, but his legs went out from under him.

He laughed it off every time.

Retirement afforded Carl Thistel time to revisit favorite hobbies, including journaling, watching movies and — above all else — studying and riding trains.

He found it relaxing to sit for hours at a station watching them go by. Sometimes, he’d take an early train to another city and people-watch from a hotel where he wasn’t staying.

“He was just a very peaceful person,” his granddaughter said.

The Banner publishes news stories about people who have recently died in Maryland. If your loved one has passed and you would like to inquire about an obituary, please contact obituary@thebanner.com. If you are interested in placing a paid death notice, please contact groupsales@thebanner.com or visit this website.