Stanley Finkel

1931 - 2022

Stanley Finkel
June 12, 1931 - February 2, 2022
Stanley Finkel, father, husband, ophthalmologist was born 90 years ago in New York City in 1931. He was raised in the Bronx during the depression by parents who fled Hlusk, Belarus as teenagers. His parents worked in the garment industry in Manhattan. His life as a child of poor Jewish immigrants was a quintessential American success story. He attended high school in the Bronx where he met Anita Zerpoli. Stanley and Anita went on to attend University of Michigan as an undergrads. They married when Stanley was the ripe old age of 20. Stanley later graduated from the University of Michigan Medical School. Their first son, David, was born during their student years in Ann Arbor.

With little money after medical school, he joined the United States Air Force. During his Air Force service he completed his medical residency in ophthalmology. The Air Force years were peripatetic ones, spent early on in New Hampshire, Philadelphia, and San Antonio, Texas. His last Air Force assignment sent him, and family, to the United States Air Force Base in Bitburg, West Germany. His knowledge of Yiddish as a child had helped him become an award winning German language student in high school. Those language skills provided the basis for fantastic adventures in early 1960s W. Germany. Stanley and family initially lived off-base in Bitburg, and during that time made life long friends there. It was during this period that their younger son, Joseph, was born. The experience of living and traveling in Europe would forever enrich his life and color his interests.

After resigning his commission as a Major, he and family returned to the United States and soon settled in Palo Alto. Stanley began his private ophthalmology practice in Cupertino when it was still full of orchards (but not yet full of Apple). He later moved his practice to Mountain View, right behind El Camino Hospital. His work brought him into contact with patients from all over the world, whose often fascinating life stories he would frequently share with his family at the dinner table.

Stanley was a self-deprecating, extroverted raconteur who liked Cuban cigars, opera, lively conversation, and European travel with Anita. He was an intensely curious, outgoing guy whose willingness to engage complete strangers in conversation often embarrassed his children, but just as frequently resulted in new friends. He was unafraid of speaking German or Italian, despite the fact that he was far from fluent in either. He loved good food and did not shy away from rustic old-country delicacies such as Ptcha (calve's foot jelly) that the rest of his family found less than palatable. He was culturally Jewish; he was not a religious person at all.

Stanley and Anita were married 67 years. Anita passed away three and half years before him. He leaves two children, David and Joseph, three grandchildren, Francisca, Jacob and James and his close cousins, the Cartsonis Family. He and his constant sense of humor, which remained with him until the end, will be sorely missed by all who knew him. Stanley died of Covid pneumonia on 2/2/22 in El Camino Hospital despite being vaccinated and boosted. It was the same hospital where he regularly performed cataract surgeries and attended to patients in the ER for many years. Memorial plans are pending.