Person Page - 265

David G. Gregor M. D aged 84, retired general surgeon with Good Samaritan Hospital and private surgical practice in the Watertown area, died suddenly at his home on Sunday August 18th 2013.
Dr. Gregor began his education at the Sherman Street school in Watertown, graduated in 1947 from Exeter Academy in New Hampshire, and from Williams College with the class of 1951. He acquired an M.D. degree in 1955 from the Temple school of Medicine in Philadelphia and then served as an army medical officer in France.
He began his residency at Genesee Hospital in Rochester in 1956, moved to Strong Memorial, and in 1962 to Highland -Alameda in California. In 1963 he joined the staff at Strong Memorial and in the same year was accepted by the American Board of surgery.
Moving home to Watertown in 1964 he held various leadership positions such as: Chief of general Surgery, Chairman of Department of Surgery, Vice President of medical staff and in 1983 president - following in his father’s footsteps, since the previous Dr Gregor was president of the medical staff in 1932.
Apart from his professional life Dr. Gregor was a very active sportsman, who loved fly fishing and wing shooting. He fished in Alaska, Russia, Central and South America as well as Canada and the United States, particularly in the Saint Lawrence River and Islands of Lake Ontario.
Bird and waterfowl shooting took him to Scotland, Denmark, Hungary as well as the United States and Canadian prairies, and locally on Wolfe and Grenadier Islands. Grenadier Island, lying in Lake Ontario in the town of Cape Vincent was a particular interest. Joining with several Williams friends, a "Duck Club" was formed in the late 1950's, under the leadership of J. Wyatt Uhlein. As the years went by this group became more interested in conservation and in 1978 turned over to the Nature Conservancy a permanent conservation easement on many hundreds of acres of grassland, and more than two miles of island shoreline, to be held forever in trust as a nature preserve.
An intensely private person, Dr Gregor was quietly an important supporter and donor to many of the area's philanthropic institutions.
Dr. Gregor was born on May 22th 1929. His mother Elisabeth Stebbins Gregor Taylor ("Ea") was an excellent fisherwoman and golfer. His father Gilbert David Gregor sadly died at an early age thus deprived of seeing his son succeed so well in their chosen field of medicine. He is survived by his sister Ann Sewall and her husband Ed Kaelber of Bar Harbor Maine and her children, his nephew Sam Cauldwell from Jacksonville Florida, his niece Leslie Cauldwell and her husband Tim Mulavey of Jamaica Plain Massachusetts. Also by a host of friends, grateful patients, a large extended family, and one big black Labrador named Jake, with whom he was very close and vice-versa.³