Dr. Robert Gordon Stinson December 11, 1925 – September 12, 2020

On the 12th day of September, Bob Stinson passed away peacefully in his 95th year.

Bob leaves behind his beloved wife of 71 years, Ann, his four children Douglas Stinson, Rod Stinson, Marg Glos, and Bill Stinson, his nine grandchildren, Sinead, Marcus, Dylan, Aubrey, Sol, Reuben, Kelsey, Adrienne, and Eric, and four great-grandchildren, Keyan, Lenex, Skyla and Ariel.

Bob was born in Asphodel Township, Norwood, Ontario on December 11th, 1925. His parents were dairy farmers. As the eldest of three children, Bob had many farm chores and duties. He also helped to care for his sister Dorothy, who had osteomyelitis in a time before antibiotics, and his brother Harold, who had a seizure disorder before anti-epileptics.

Bob began his education in a one-room schoolhouse. As small children, he and his siblings went barefoot all summer, until the first frost. His father used to take the back seat out of the family’s Model T Ford, in order to transport a cow.

In high school Bob met the love of his life, Ann Giffen, but their romance didn’t begin until a Christmastime pond skating party when he was home from Veterinary College in Guelph. Bob graduated from Veterinary College in 1949, and married Elizabeth Ann Stinson on June 21st of the same year. Bob and Ann’s life partnership was long, loving, and full of fun and adventure.

Bob was a large-animal veterinarian, and found no shortage of work in rural Canada. He practiced in Hastings, Ontario for a short while, and near Antigonish, Nova Scotia for a year, before moving to Swift Current and then Maple Creek, Saskatchewan. In 1967 the family moved to Yorkton Saskatchewan, and that same year Bob spent several months overseas, helping with a serious outbreak of hoof-and-mouth disease in the United Kingdom. The family moved to Calgary in 1968, where Bob began working for Health of Animals, later Agriculture Canada.

Every other year during the summer months, Bob and Ann would pack up their four children and drive from Saskatchewan to southern Ontario, making sandwiches on the hood of the car. The family attended Expo ’67 in Montreal, PQ. Bob and Ann would pack up their trailer, and live up in the Cypress Hills for the majority of the hot Saskatchewan summers.

In 1982, Bob and Ann moved to White Rock, BC. Bob retired in 1985, and Bob and Ann began three healthful and rewarding decades of golf, sailing, hiking, curling, and global travel adventures. For many years they spent a month in Kauai in the fall, golfing and hiking. Bob found pleasure and gratification in his involvement with the Rotarians in Calgary and White Rock. In White Rock he had fun socializing with friends at the Hazelmere Golf Club and Surrey Curling Club.

An avid ham radio operator, Bob volunteered for disaster planning agencies, and networked with other ham radio operators. He was an enthusiastic reader, diligently clipping and posting pertinent newspaper articles for friends and family. Bob was famous for telling long, rambling stories, not only about his own life, but also about friends, neighbours, and distant acquaintances, right back to his early years in Asphodel Township, astounding his listeners with the extent of detail and minutiae he could recall. In June of 2019, Bob and Ann sold their house in White Rock and moved to Kamloops Seniors Village, close to their son Bill.

The family would like to thank Dr. Grant Del Begio, and the deeply compassionate and extraordinarily kind staff of Kamloops Seniors Village in particular Bonnie Johnson, and the Marjorie Willoughby Snowden Hospice House.

You may offer condolences by visiting Schoening Funeral Service.

• Date : 2020-09-12
• Location : Kamloops, BC