Dr. Ian Moyes Thom
Born in Edinburgh, Scotland, on November 14, 1924, Dr. Ian Thom passed away on Salt Spring Island on April 4, 2013. Ian will be sadly missed and forever loved and remembered by his wife of 60 years, Minnie; his daughter, Lesley Reynolds (Victor); his son, Andrew (Debbie Nowell); granddaughter, Camille Reynolds; sisters-in-law Moira Thom and Janet Reynolds; and cousins David Thom and Joe Gallelli. Ian was predeceased by his brother, Cecil.
Ian spent his boyhood in Edinburgh. During the Second World War, he served as a radio operator on Lord Louis Mountbatten’s headquarters ship, HMS Bulolo, which played a vital communications role in the Allied war effort during the D-Day landings and in operations around Malaya, Singapore and Sumatra until the end of the war. After the war, Ian studied medicine at the University of Edinburgh. While a student, he met the love of his life, Minnie Jane Berry Murphy, and they married after his graduation in 1952. Ian practised medicine in Birmingham and Watford, England, before moving with his family to Regina, Saskatchewan, in 1962. Ian was a respected and beloved family physician in Regina for 27 years before retiring to Salt Spring in 1989.
Ian was a compassionate and skilled doctor and a proud Scotsman. He had an inquiring mind and loved fast cars, planes, boats and radios. Above all, he loved people; he was a devoted husband and father and a valued friend. Ian’s family would like to thank his friend and physician, Dr. Ron Reznick, and the staff at Greenwoods, who cared for Ian with love and respect during the last year of his life.
A celebration of Ian’s life will be held at 181 Fort Street, Salt Spring Island, on Sunday, April 28 at 2 p.m. Friends are invited to join his family to share their favourite memories of Ian and to raise a glass in his honour.
An honest man here lies at rest
As e’er God with his image blest;
The friend of man, the friend of truth,
The friend of age, and guide of youth:
Few hearts like his, with virtue warm’d,
Few heads with knowledge so informed:
If there’s another world, he lives in bliss;
If there is none, he made the best of this.
– Robert Burns