Obituary | Matti Pesonen 1936–2023

County doctor Matti Pesonen died in Jyväskylä on August 24, 2023. He was 86 years old, born in Helsinki on October 18, 1936.

Pesonen was born as the second child of lecturer Sirkku Pesonen and composer, songwriter Olavi Pesonen. Pesonen graduated in 1956 as a high school student in Helsinki. He started his medical studies in Germany while studying singing there at the same time.

A peso graduated from the University of Helsinki with a licentiate in medicine in 1965 and later specialized in general medicine. In 1969, he completed his DPH at the University of Zagreb.

As Viitasaari's municipal doctor, Pesonen worked from 1966 to 1973, and as Central Finland's, then Western Finland's county doctor from 1973 to 1999. According to his close colleague, he was excellent and unique as a colleague.

Pesos has been characterized as understanding, balanced and a person who takes positive initiatives, and he held positions of trust in several organizations. He worked e.g. In the Jyväskylä-Päijänne Rotary Club, Central Finland's Sotilaspoikien Perinnekilla, as general secretary of the Municipal Medical Association 1967–1973, as chairman of the County Medical Association 1976–1977, as a trustee of Akava 1991–1997 and as a vout of the Chaine des Rotisseurs Jyväskylä ry. His military rank was medical captain.

Music, literature, bench sports and gaming were important hobbies for Pesonen. The board of the student union of the University of Helsinki in 1964, of which Pesonen was a member, still remembers his beautiful singing voice, which really came into its own at the board's evening events.

Pesos himself had very precise criteria for what a valid music performance should sound like. Among the composers, he especially appreciated JSBach. In the last years of his life, he read e.g. Lauri Viida's poems and played actively in the Jyväskylä seniors' bridge club. Throughout his life, he was particularly passionate about following the Olympics and the World Cup.

Besides Töölö, Pesonen's favorite place to grow up was the Viitasaari Folk School, where he and his spouse invited their relatives and friends. Pesonen understood good food and high-quality champagne, and preferably enjoyed his drink in the sauna of his summer apartment while deeply admiring his own coastline and forest.

Schoolboys The Hela club, founded in the 1950s in the Helsinki co-educational high school, organized events until the 2010s. In the later decades, the exercise program of youth gatherings focused on saunas, quizzes and dinners.

From the beginning, Pesonen was a trusted, knowledgeable and proactive member of the club, who is remembered above all as a warm friend.

Marja-Liisa Pesonen

Juha Pesonen

The authors are Matti Pesonen's children.