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Dr. Gordon Robert Finley

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Gordon Finley Obituary

Published by Vancouver Sun and The Province from Apr. 4 to Apr. 5, 2006.

FINLEY _ Dr. Gordon Robert passed away in the presence of his loving family on March 31, 2006 in Surrey at the age of 85 years. Born in Cranbrook, B.C. to James and Margaret Finley, he leaves to mourn his dear wife Vernon (nee Kierstead), children James (Brit), grandchildren Jamie and Kristopher and Ke Yang, Susan (Chris) Klapwijk grandson Warren (Denise) Seigler and great-grandchildren Jasmine and Julianne, Melanie (Peter) Ribchester, grandchildren Jaycon, and Kia and Arly Frederiksen, Henry (Kathy) grandchildren Lindsay and Drew, Stuart (Shirley) grandchildren Gregory and Kirsten, other extended family and many dear friends. Fin graduated medical school from the University of Alberta then he and Vernie settled in Surrey, B.C. where he opened his general medical practice and surgery office in Whalley in 1949 until his retirement in 1986. His hobbies included ham radio operator, gardening (Rhododendron Society), flying and pleasure boating. A Memorial Service will be held on Thursday, April 6th at 2:00 p.m. from the Chapel of Valley View Funeral Home, 14660 72nd Avenue, Surrey. Donations in Fin's memory can be made to the charity of your choice.

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Recent Activity

April 16, 2006

May Crookall posted to the memorial.

April 12, 2006

Kris Finley posted to the memorial.

April 10, 2006

Jim Finley posted to the memorial.

6 Entries

May Crookall

April 16, 2006

We would like to express our deepest sympathy to the family of Dr. Finley, who was our family physician in whalley many years ago before we moved to the north island. We can well understand how you all are feeling during this sad and lonely time, as we too have just lost our dad, Robert Crookall in February. Your dad and husband has been in many conversations of ours, from stitches, broken bones and new babies. We looked up to him not only as a physician but as a good friend when needed.

Take Care, keep close and cherish all the wonderful memmories you have been given.

May Crookall--Parksville

Judy Gray --Langley

Penny Grief --Port McNeill

Louise Dugas--Port Hardy

Robert Crookall Jr -- Courtenay

Kris Finley

April 12, 2006

Thanks all who remember and celebrate the life of a great man. He lived as he loved...with all the passion and fire he possesed. Think of him not as an extinguished flame but as a guiding light that will warm us always. Give-em hell grandpa!!

Your loving grandson Kris Finley

P.S. sorry about the golf ball I chipped through your front window when I was 12.....at least it was right in the middle lol.

Jim Finley

April 10, 2006

Thank you all for coming today and being with us in remembering our father, best known to most of you as “Fin”, or “Doc”.

I am Jim Finley, the eldest of his children, and I speak on behalf of my mother, Verne, my brothers Henry and Stuart, my sisters, Susan and Melanie, our spouses, Brit, Kathy, Shirley, Chris, Peter, and grandchildren, Jamie, Kris, Ke, Arly, Kia, Jaycon, Lindsey, Drew, Greg, Kirsten, and Warren and his wife, Denise, and great grandchildren, Jasmine and Juliann.

If dad were here with us today, he would likely ask “What the hell’s going on”? You see. he didn’t like to be fussed over.

Our father was a very unpretentious man. He was not a self seeking or vain man, but he made his corner of the world a better place.

Dad knew how to do things, and say things, and talk to people. He was big in character. He was the most plainly decent man you could ever hope to meet. His worth was measured as a “man” not in monitory wealth. Honest, compassionate, grateful, brave. He was the most plainly decent man you could ever hope to meet, but he needed someone to lead him, someone to show him the way. He found this person in our mother.

Mom is a wonderful combination of strength, grace, stubbornness, and elegance. When he married mom, he found the best of himself. That’s what made them such a wonderful couple, that’s what made it work.

Considering his lack of pretension, his intelligence, his commitment to the people he held near and dear to him, his popularity was always a surprise to him.

He was am amazing diagnostician. It does not seem to matter who you talk to around Surrey, everyone seems to know who Doc Finley is.

My mother and father were married in 1949, shortly after he had graduated from the University of Alberta, with a degree in medicine. It was his dedication to medicine that had him running off to deliver a set of twins on his wedding day.

Dad treated his professional career as a responsibility, not a mandate. There is a profound difference. For many of you here today, you will be familure with this dedication for you knew Pa as your doctor.

Others of you here knew him professionally, or as chief of staff for a time at Surrey Memorial, or as your employer, or co-worker at the hospital.

When dad was recently admitted into 5 North in Surrey Memorial, one of the nurses there recalled telling dad of a concern she’d had many years ago about the family of one of dad’s patients. Dad’s reply to her at that time had been, “I’ll talk to the G--.D--family”.

Yes, Dad did have a reputation for a solid command of the English Language.

Some here today knew dad as a friend. You know him from his many years of being a member of the Rhododendron Society, or from boating, his flying days, as a neighbour, or ham radio operator.

The impact he had on all his Ham friends was respectfully acknowledged a few nights ago, when his old friend, Joe asked the other Hams to observe a minute of silence over the air waves, to honour and remember ....VE7TB…We thank them all for this tribute.

As was written by Louis K. Peterson in an article titled “A Finley Story”, in the Indumentum paper “What possible link, you might ask, could exist among a violinist, a rural forest, the medical profession, short wave radio, exotic postcards of the West Coast, the genus rhododendron, small planes, and a teaspoon?” Mom and Dad started landscaping their 3 acres in Surrey with a teaspoon of rhode seeds, and the Finley gardens were created. What better place to be a kid to grow up, then surrounded by a forest to build forts, and play cowboys and Indians.

Since dad left, we, his family, have spent hours together remembering, crying, laughing, some times numb, other times hurting, disbelieving, and relieved. But during these past days, there has been one thing that has remained a constant. The love we all have for Dad. He was many things to many people, but to us, his family, he was Pa.

His legacy to his family is a curiosity about life. a hunger for knowledge, a passion for gardening, an example of a life where riches owe little to money, a sense that anything is possible, if you work hard. When we succeeded, he stood back and took no credit, when we failed, he was by our side.

His linguistic skills are legendary, but he found it hard to say I Love You. But speech is just one tiny part of communication. His feelings proved too much for words alone, his love was so profound, that it simply defied words. His presence communicated everything we needed to know. He showed daily, with his eyes, his deeds, and actions. We know we are loved.

We all spent Thursday, March 30, 2006 at Pa’s bedside. At this point, he could no longer verbalize our names, but knew us as the people who hugged him, and told him that we loved him.

They say that hearing is the last thing to go, so we talked, and talked. As Kathy said that night, it was like old times around the dinner table.

We remembered summers at Shuswap, and 59 Pontiac Station wagons. We remembered Pa pulling burning logs out of the fireplace, when a downdraft sent smoke into the lodge. We remembered Pa complaining that the only place he got a suntan was his back end, from bending over the bilge every summer on the boat, or the time all hands were below decks with there own bowls, during a small craft warning, while dad and I were at the wheel, hoping we weren’t going down to Davy Jones Locker.

We remembered all the hair dos and hair don’t while dad practised his secret passion of hair dressing on mom, and one occasion in particular when I asked “where’s my mom” because there was a strange blond lady in the kitchen. Or Sunday dinners, with dad sitting at the head of the table, and yearly, watching that table grow to include daughters and sons-in-laws, and grandkids and great-grandkids.

We remembered the quiet communication dad had with mom, talking to each other with their eyes across the table. And we remembered fishing stories, some long, and some tall. We remembered Dr. Trembath being frantic, because dad decided to take the short cut over the Sandheads, and he couldn’t help if we’d gotten in trouble because the water was too shallow.

We remembered that we could tell what level of stress we kids had driven dad to by the number of puffs it took to get to the end of his cigarette. Stuart recalls it taking only two, glowing red draws when he confessed to “denting” the V.W. rabbit, and how fast dad could really run, when Stuart decided to run for the hills till dad cooled down.

We remembered all the Rhododendron flower show and sales, and how the Finleys would all be there, and the potting parties at the farm, when even the current smallest Finley helped out.

Mom decided to join Dad in getting a pilots license. As she said, “If you can’t beat them, join them.”, and Sue and Mel got theirs too.

We remembered mom and dad flying Brit over to see me when I worked on the Island, and Brit noting that the artificial horizon was at 90 degrees, with the water in one window and the sky in the other, while Mom and Pa “discussed” which cove that really was down there. Pa threatened to get Brit a steering wheel for the backseat of the plane for Christmas that year.

Or the summer when mom and I rowed all the way into the harbour in our dingy, not wanting to get back into the Maggie Joan with Dad and the rest of the family after I had run her up on the rocks.

We remembered the family golf tournaments, and how dad set the tone one memorable day when, as he told another team, he had “lost” his club, His driver had ended up in the water trap along with his ball. When he decided that the rest of his clubs should follow, he was convinced to head back to the club house, and wait out the game.

And we remembered dad’s first attempt at giving driving lessons, when I made my first successful stop on 128th. with all 4 wheels locked and tires smoking. Henry, Sue, Mel and Stuart were all sent to the Whalley driving school when they turned 16.

We remembered when Mel smashed up the blue station wagon, and, ….was that before…… or after Henry got hit while driving that same wagon?

Mel, Sue and Henry remembered their music lessons, prompted by dad’s love for the violin.

And how Dad never fully explained how his violin ended up being thrown out the window during one of his practices.

Or how about when he pulled that same violin out, and played when his kids, one by one, got married.

And we remembered how the 6 acre “Hobby Farm” in Langley” turned into a full time job for dad, when he left his medical practise at the age of 67.

Both mom and dad worked hard and hybridized “Burnaby Centennial” in a competition sponsored by the City of Burnaby.

Kathy recalls how Pa “rescued” Lindsey from a group of pigs, when Lindsey was barely tall enough to look over their backs.

We remembered all the grandkids, when they were old enough, having grandpa instruct them on how to run the tractor at the farm, and how good Pa was at leaping over ditches as he ran for cover when the tractor headed his way, with a wild eyed grandkid behind the wheel.

Mom remembered Pa, at the birth of each grandchild, and how he would sit with that new babe in his arms, making everyone wait till “he” was good and ready to let someone else have a turn.

On Thursday March 30, 2006, as we all stood around Pa’s bed, and talked, and remembered, we watched as mom held his hand, and rubbed his ear, and spoke to him with her eyes, telling Pa that she loved him, and that it was O.K. to let go.

Mom you have loved and cared for dad all these years. We know, as you know, that dad could be impatient, demanding, and high maintenance. We know, as you know, that dad loved you.

Thank you for caring for him, and allowing him to be who he wanted to be, just as you allowed us to be who we are. You let us go when we were ready to fly.

Friday, March 31, 2006 was dad’s final letting go. His letting go attested to his faith in us, his family. That we would take care of mom and each other. He trusts that mom will know that their relationship does not end in death, but reaches its perfection.

These next days, weeks, months and years will know a new intimacy for Mom, in reflection and recollection.

If you wonder where people go when they die, I believe they go into the hearts of people who love them.

I ask that you take a look into the eyes of the people sitting all around you. You will see our father in every face.

Pa was granted his dignity to the end, enabled by the compassionate care he received from the Surrey Memorial 4 North staff and by Dr. Shek Wong, his old friend and partner. On behalf of the family, we thank you.

You did it your way Pa, and enjoyed doing it, and taught us that it’s O.K. to cry, when you say goodbye.

In the future, if ever you want to see our father, look into our eyes, he’ll always be there.

At approximately 6:45 A.M. on Friday March 31, 2006……with mom at his side………..Dad signed off for the last time…… CQ and Victor Echo Seven Tango Bravo over and out.

Goodnight Pa.

Catherine Holtvluwer (Trembath)

April 9, 2006

I am very sorry to hear of Dr. Finley's passing. I have so many fun memories of him visiting our family as well as being our doctor, it was always a pleasure to see him. I remember his expressive nicknames for everyone - he was very creative! My sincere condolences to the Finley family.

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HUGH WRIGHT

April 5, 2006

I'm Hugh Wright , son of Amy Wright and our late father Charlie Wright. We have very fond memories of Dr. Finley from the early 1950's on Pearson Road. Dr. Finley called on our home during these times to attend our family for sicknesses and cuts from falls etc. Oh, the memories we have to cherish ! On behalf of my mother Amy ( who helped me with these words ) , our late father , and my sisters Judy , Marie and brother Wayne we pass on our condolences to the Finley family. Our thoughts are on you and with you. "God bless"

Gary Buckberry

April 4, 2006

Stu & Shirley,

I am so sad to hear about your dad - I know how hard this must be for you. Give our best to the rest of your family.

Gary, Patty, Ayla & Molly

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Valley View Funeral Home & Cemetery

14644 - 72nd Avenue, Surrey, BC V3S 2E7