Dr. Carl Mattioda had a reputation as an easygoing person.

This was an important trait for the Streator-based obstetrician, who worked 53 years and delivered more than 10,000 babies to sometimes nervous or sensitive mothers.

"He was very compassionate," said his colleague of more than 40 years, Dr. Chaoming Chen, who still practices out of his office on Sixth Street in Streator. "He was easy to get along with. All the patients who remember him say only good things about him."

Mattioda died Saturday night. He will be remembered for the many lives he helped bring into the world.

"Between the two of us, we probably delivered half of Streator," Chen said.

Mattioda retired on his 86th birthday in August 2015. In a Times article, he said he enjoyed listening to his patients and trying to help them.

"There's a lot more to medicine, I found," Mattioda said in the 2015 article. "Maybe you could help them with problems besides medical just by listening."

Mattioda was born in Spring Valley and returned after retirement to the house where he grew up. He had three children, and more than a dozen grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

He told The Times he never got tired of hearing a baby's first cry.

"It was the most exciting moment from the first baby to the last."

Chen remembers Mattioda recruiting him to Streator.

"He convinced me to come, because he said Streator was a very friendly town," Chen said. "I've been here the last 45 years."

Chen also remembers Mattioda as more than a professional colleague, but as a family friend. Chen and his wife would go to lunch with Mattioda around his Aug. 20 birthday, because Chen's wife's birthday was just the day before.

Mattioda would pick up Chen's twin boys from Marquette football practice.

"They liked when he picked them up, because he had the bigger car, he had a Continental car," Chen said.

Despite sharing an office for four decades, the two doctors never argued, and Chen doesn't recall seeing Mattioda mad.

"Except on Mondays," Chen laughed. "That's if Notre Dame football lost."

As word spread about Mattioda's death on social media, the doctor's Facebook page, which happens to also have the Notre Dame logo as the profile picture, erupted with kind words from his many patients over the years. They referred to him as a caring man and recalled that he either was the doctor delivering them, or the doctor delivering their children.

"We're sad to see him go," Chen said. "He will be missed."

EDITOR'S NOTE: The author of this article was delivered January of 1984, by Dr. Carl Mattioda in St. Mary's Hospital.