Stephen Charles Thorson

THORSON, Stephen Charles B.Sc. (Med) M.D. F.R.C.P. (C) January 5, 1925 February 1, 2005 Stephen passed away peacefully on February 1 in Saanich Peninsula Hospital. Survived by his loving wife, Dorothy, daughters Kristin (Maurice) Vignal of Prince George, Lisa Thorson of Vancouver and son, Stephen Thorson of Toronto, along with two grandchildren, Geoffrey and Kathleen, and one great-granddaughter, Makenna. Stephen was born in Winnipeg, Manitoba, in 1925 to Ada and Charles Thorson. In 1936 he moved to Los Angeles and attended Elsinore Naval Academy and Hollywood High School. He returned to Canada in 1943 to join the RCAF. After the war, Stephen enrolled in the premedicine program at the University of Manitoba in 1945. While at university, he married Mary (Molly) Louise Griffiths of Saskatoon, who passed away on June 4, 1983. In 1952 he obtained his medical degree and entered private practice in Surrey, BC. The years between 1962 and 1965 were spent in residency at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota. After returning to Vancouver, BC, as Chief Resident in Medicine at Vancouver General Hospital, he became a professor of Medicine at the University of British Columbia with a private practice at V.G.H. and was head of the U.B.C. teaching department for medical students until his retirement in 1990. Stephen was an avid yachtsman and gardener, an accomplished artist, and a scholar of European history. He had an abiding interest in his Viking ancestry. Donations to Saanich Peninsula Hospital Foundation if desired. 36824