In Memory of Dr. Conchita Redmon

Dr. Conchita Mar de Castro Redmon passed away peacefully in her home on April 7th, 2026 in Springfield, MO. She was on hospice for end-stage vascular dementia after a years-long decline following a stroke in 2020. She was surrounded by her children and grandchildren, who spent her last days holding her hands, laughing and crying at old memories, and singing karaoke around her bed.

 

Known to her close friends and family as Ching, she was the youngest child of her mother Trinidad Mar de Castro and her father Eugenio de Castro. She had three older half-siblings, Edie, Jane, and Tony. She was born in Los Baños, Laguna, in the Philippines on May 28th,1945.

 

In 1969, at the age of 24, Ching completed medical school at the University of the Philippines, College of Medicine. She immigrated to Honolulu, Hawaii for residency in Internal Medicine. There she married the love of her life and “handsomest man in uniform”, Howard Redmon, in August of 1975. Over the next 5 years, they welcomed 3 amazing children: Mara, Shannah, and Philip. 

She worked as an Emergency Room and Ambulatory Care physician as the family moved across the country based on her husband’s military orders.  When Howard retired from the military in 1984, they moved to Springfield, Missouri, to be close to his family.

Ching opened her own medical practice, the James River Clinic, in Nixa in 1989. In 1992, she joined St John’s Physicians and Clinics, and retired as the Senior Physician at the Southwest Medical Clinic on Republic Road in 2008. At various times in her long career in medicine, she took calls at Cox Hospital and saw patients at Lakeland Medical as well as the US Medical Center for Federal Prisoners. She was also the physician for the St. Anne Carmelite Monastery, a cloistered order, and was honored to serve them.

Dr. Redmon believed in laughter as the best medicine, and truly loved interacting with her patients and helping them solve their medical issues. She was genuinely interested in people’s stories and learning about American life. She received many gratitude and Christmas cards from her patients over the years, which she saved and cherished.

 

Ching spent much of her free time in her garden, with her husband. She knew the Latin names for plants, and especially loved peonies, hostas, and Japanese maples. Many friends received bags of chestnuts in the fall, harvested from the chestnut trees they planted on their property. She loved touring the Springfield Botanic Gardens at Nathaniel Greene/Close Memorial Park, in particular the Hosta Garden and Japanese Stroll Garden. The Redmon Family Fund has sponsored the Founders Garden in her memory for the past several years. 

 

Ching and Howard were early members of the FILAASMO - the Filipino American Association of Southwest Missouri. They helped celebrate Filipino culture and traditions, serving as Presidents and Board Members for a time. Her children remember attending multiple Filipino potlucks every year filled with masarap (delicious) dishes of pancit, lumpia, adobo, large crocks of rice, and more as well as the ever-present loud buzz of laughter and conversation in Tagalog and English. 

 

Ching supported the next generation of Filipino physicians as a member and major fundraiser for the University of the Philippines Medical Alumni Association in America, UPMASA. She helped build the Permanent Endowment Fund of UPMASA, which has allowed for ongoing support of new medical students, medical books and libraries, patient care, research, and infrastructure. She organized deliveries of books, some donated and some purchased from the Greene County Public Library Book Sales, to libraries in the Philippines.

 

She is survived by her three children and their spouses, Mara and Scott Higdon, Shannah Redmon and Phil Dudas, and Phil Redmon and Carolyn Orbann; ten grandchildren, Fox, Charlie, Penny, Helen, Walter, Ruben, Henry, Beatrice, Jackson, and George; and her sister Jane de Castro. She was preceded in death by her spouse, Howard Redmon, her father and mother, Eugenio and Trinidad de Castro; and her two brothers, Edie de Castro and Tony de Castro.

 

Her Celebration of Life will be held on Friday, July 10th, from 5-8 PM, at Cassidy Station at Estes Farms in Nixa MO, RSVP at the website conchitaredmon.com.  Friends and family can expect to spend the evening celebrating her life with her favorite things: beautiful flowers, delicious Filipino food, BBQ, Diet Coke, buko pie, and karaoke. That week, her ashes will be interred next to Howard’s grave in Hazelwood Cemetery, Springfield MO.

In lieu of flowers, the family requests donations to the UPMASA Permanent Endowment Fund or Friends of the Garden, in her memory. Conchita’s life can be summed up perfectly in this quote, which was found in one of her memory books, by George Bernard Shaw  “This is the true joy in life, the being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one; the being thoroughly worn out before you are thrown on the scrap heap; the being a force of Nature instead of a feverish selfish little clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy”.