MEMOIR
dad, My the
AIR FORCE DOCTOR PHYSICIAN AND FLIGHT LIEUTENANT EDWARD THORNE SERVED WITH THE RCAF FROM 1941 TO 1946, AND TREATED HUNDREDS OF GRATEFUL FLYERS By STEPHEN J. THORNE
t
he nooks and crannies of my parents’ red-brick house in Halifax held many secrets and, as a child, my insatiable curiosity took me into closets, drawers, attic and basement, most often in search of my father’s past. Edward Lefferts (Ted) Thorne III was born on Friday, June 13, 1913, and some might say he was cursed. He’d likely tell them otherwise. He had survived tuberculosis, and lost his mother—a First World War nurse— and brother to the same dreaded disease.
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He had seen his father lose all in the Depression and his first wife drop dead from a brain hemorrhage. He would lose a daughter to breast cancer. But in his 90 years on this earth, Dr. Thorne—my dad—delivered hundreds of babies, saved hundreds of lives and, by the time he retired from general practice at 87, he had cultivated hundreds of relationships, mostly good. He witnessed the rise of the automobile, the airplane, television and the Internet—although he never touched a computer. He watched, spellbound,
JULY/AUGUST 2017 > legionmagazine.com
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2017-05-26 10:21 AM
