Gerald Francis Winkler was born in Winnipeg, Manitoba on December 8, 1929, to parents Morley and Dorothy Winkler. Morley had come to Canada with his family as a babe in arms at the turn of the century from a town that is now part of Ukraine, and Dorothy arrived as an adolescent from Bucharest, Rumania, to join an older brother after the death of her mother. Morley eventually joined the Great West Life Insurance Company, and embarked on a long and successful career as an insurance agent.
The young Gerry excelled academically from a very young age, and although neither of his parents had been in a position to benefit from higher education, it was clear the Gerry was headed for university. He had an organized mind, and a great capacity for concentration. But he also developed an early enthusiasm for the medium of radio, one that lasted a lifeMme. He had a resonant voice, was active in student radio, and amassed an impressive collection of radio tapes over the years. He also used the medium as an educational tool for his younger brother, Donald, ten years his junior, who under his guidance discovered the French language through radio, Canadian performers through radio, literature through radiophonic adaptations, and encouraged by his brother, was for a few years a child radio actor in his hometown. Donald was also inspired by the fact that by the Mme he arrived at high school, Gerry’s name was already up on the school’s wall, thanks to his academic accomplishments, and by the Mme he arrived at university, his brother had already, upon his graduation in 1954, been named that year’s University of Manitoba Medical School gold medallist.
Gerry had early on decided that medicine would be his life’s work. At university he received a number of awards in addition to the gold medal and following his graduation he moved on to Boston for a residency there, and an eventual specialization in neurology that would occupy him for the rest of his professional life, enjoying a long association with the Massachusetts General Hospital. In 1957 He married Doris Veiner, and the couple had three children: Daniel, Anne, and Deborah. Over the years, as outlined in his lengthy curriculum vitae, his life was filled with academic and hospital appointments, administrative responsibilities, committee assignments, positions in professional societies, teaching, consultations, and of course private practice. We will never know how many patients benefitted from his care and concern.
After the death of his wife, and after his own official retirement, he remained active as a consultant, and even returned to a first love, voice, reading for the blind. When his health began to fail he was taken in by his son Dan in his house in Millis Massachusetts, where for the last seven years Dan offered him supportive care so meticulous and inventive that, in the opinion of medical professionals, it extended his life by more than half a decade. This adventure would likely, in and of itself, merit an account in a medical journal. Alert and comfortable to the end, Gerry passed away on September 19, aHer a life well lived. He is survived by his three children, seven grandchildren, and his younger brother.
The funeral will be at noon on Friday September 29, 2023 at Prospect Hill Cemetery, 74 Auburn Road, in Millis, MA. Afterwards a reception will be held ten minutes away at Thayer Homestead, 2B Oak St, Medway, MA.