John Furst

John was born in Iowa. He lost his mother due to Spanish flu when he was almost 5. His father was a traveling seed salesman, so John and Bill (his older brother) were raised by a maiden aunt, and, until they died, his grandparents, in New Prague, Minn. At the end of his junior year in high school, he and his aunt moved to Minneapolis, Minn., where he finished high school, college and medical school. He served his medical internship in Hackensack, N.J. This is where he met (as he put it) Marion MacPherson, a beautiful blonde nursing supervisor. She promptly scolded him for contaminating the instrument tray by sticking his unsterilized hand into it. He asked her out anyway, and they eloped two months later. One year later, they moved to a tiny town at the top of Minnesota, where a daughter was born. A year after that, John joined the U.S. Army, and they moved to Fort Snelling, Minn. Another daughter was born there. John was sent to Panama to help set up a hospital for soldiers wounded during World War II. He was there for two and a half years. On John’s return to the United States, the family moved back and forth across the country to many Army hospitals. In 1952, John retired from the Army as a Lieutenant Colonel, and moved to Corvallis to join The Corvallis Clinic as its first urologist. John’s hobbies were roses and orchids. He had hundreds of them. John was thrilled when, in 1956, he and Marion had a baby boy. Not many years later, he developed an interest in English sports cars, which he loved to drive. In August of 1982, the day that John was going to retire so that he could spend more time with Marion, she died. After a period of bereavement, John recertified his medical license and went back to his practice at The Corvallis Clinic. He retired for the second time in 1989. John traveled to St. Lucia to practice medicine in an area that badly needed help. He said when he left that he might spend the rest of his life there; after two months, he returned to Corvallis because he missed his family and friends so much. In 1991, he started baby-sitting a grandson, then an infant, five days a week. He did this for the next 12 years. He was in heaven doing it! John was preceded in death by his wife, Marion; son, John; and brother, Bill. He is survived by daughters Catherine (Kip) and her husband, Eldon Worley, and Susan and husband, Ron Chastain; nine grandchildren; and 26 great-grandchildren.

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John Furst

April 11, 1915 - March 31, 2012