Wallace M. Shaw, 95, anesthesiologist and filmmaker.

WALLY SHAW took up residence in Philadelphia in 2001, and in just two years, he was on a mural.

Might be some kind of record there, but Wally didn't really want to be on the mural at 18th and Callowhill streets that depicts elderly people taking up new skills in their golden years.

Artist Donald Gensler called it "Lifelong Learning," and as it neared completion, he felt that Wally, who was in his 90s and helped plan the mural, needed to be in it.

He is shown holding a video camera, with which he made films in his senior years after a long career as a physician, teacher and researcher.

"He really did embody the spirit and character of lifelong learning," Gensler said.

Wallace M. Shaw, retired director of anesthesia at Mid-Island Hospital in Bethpage, N.Y., an Army veteran of World War II, and a man of many interests and talents, died Jan. 2 of peripheral vascular disease. He was 95.

Wally, as he was known to family and associates, lived the last 14 years of his life at the Watermark retirement community, formerly the Fountains, at 18th and Callowhill, where the 40-by-60-foot mural can be seen on the north side of the building.

Gensler said Wally visited him frequently while he was working on the mural. "His participation in the mural made not only the mural design more rich, but added to my day-to-day experience while creating the painting," Gensler said.

"He asked questions and challenged me on the steps in the process. He always wanted to know why things were done a certain way. But rather than just sitting back and watching, he participated in the solution."

Gensler's depiction of Wally's personality, and the way Wally was always fascinated by the way things work, marked his long life.

Born in New York City, Wally described his early fascination with science in an essay written at age 14.

"The pursuit of scientific studies is my hobby," he wrote. "I have delved into and studied chemistry, qualitative analysis, physiology, bacteriology, botany, electricity, physics, mathematics and surgery.

"Of these, the most interesting and fascinating to me is bacteriology. I do my experiments at home in my laboratory. I find nothing so thrilling as to look for the first time at a new species of bacteria under the microscope, then to make cultures and incubate and study them and then to make a completely new discovery, only to find it in a book when I look it up."

It would have been easy to predict that a kid with such precocity was going to do just fine in the scientific world.

Wally earned his bachelor's degree from Columbia University's Columbia College, where he was a champion fencer. He received his medical degree from New York University in 1943.

He met a talented young lady named Geraldine Sax, a student at Columbia-affiliated Barnard College. They shared many interests, including a love of dancing, and they were married in 1942.

World War II was raging at the time, and Wally enlisted in the Army. He was in charge of anesthesia at a 1,000-bed military hospital in England that treated wounded servicemen. He attained the rank of major.

After the war, he became director of anesthesia at Mid-Island Hospital, where he remained for 36 years. He was credited with innovations that increased safety in operating rooms at a time when many anesthetic gases were flammable. He retired in 1990.

Wally served as a director on the hospital's board of trustees and was president of New York Anesthesia Associates P.C.

Wally and his wife had their artistic sides. Gerry was a photographer and published writer, and Wally was a sculptor, working in clay, stone and wood.

He had numerous other interests, and had a reputation for being able to fix anything. At age 35, he built an enclosed patio by himself at his home in Holliswood, Queens, raising the steel girders by pulley.

He had an iron grip into his 90s, and men 60 years his junior couldn't break his hold on their hands.

At age 40, Wally took up filmmaking. He won awards from the Motion Picture Division of the Photographic Society of America, and served as president of the Society of Amateur Cinematographers and Video Makers.

He made a comic film, "The Model Anesthesiologist," which was shown at medical conventions. Another film, "The Listmaker," was described by a New York Times reviewer as "a wonderful film with the richness of an O. Henry short story."

"The characteristics which tied together all his activities were a driving interest in helping people, an abiding scientific interest in all things, a talent for design and construction, and a warm sense of humor," said his son James Shaw, a Philadelphia lawyer.

Wally's wife died in 2003 at age 83. Besides his son, he is survived by two other sons, Cary and Richard; five grandchildren; and his companion, Pearl Novick.

He requested that no funeral or memorial service be held.