Date of Birth:
Friday, June 27, 1930
Date of Death:
Friday, January 14, 2022
Age:
91 years old

Stafford William Gedge, M.D.

Stafford William Gedge, M.D. 91, passed away at his home on January 14, 2022 in Rochester, MN. He was born on June 27, 1930 in New York City (Bronx) to Ruth Anderson Gedge and William James Gedge. He was raised in Hollis L.I., NYC, and attended P.S. 118, Andrew Jackson High School, B.A., from Macalester College, St.  Paul, MN in 1951, M.D. Albany Medical College, Albany, NY in 1955. His internship was at the Charles T. Miller Hospital, St. Paul, MN in 1956 and began at Internal Medicine Fellowship at the Mayo Foundation and Clinic in 1956 and completed in 1960.  He was in the U.S. Naval Reserve from 1955-1965 with an honorable discharge as LCDR in 1965. He was the Medical Officer on the U.S.S. Calvert for Amphibious Landing, PA 32, 1957-1958. He received M.S. in medicine from the Graduate School of University of Minnesota, 1961. He practiced internal medicine at the Marshfield Clinic in Marshfield, WI in 1961 – 1962. He joined the staff of Internal Medicine at the Mayo Clinic in 1963. He was the assistant professor of medicine at the Mayo Medical School from 1963 to 1993, retired, and then worked part time at Mayo Clinic in Scottsdale, AZ until 2001. He had special interests in general internal medicine, cardiology and geriatrics.

Stafford served as Elder of First Presbyterian Church and 10 years on the board of Presbyterian Hospital Chaplain Program. He also did mission work at Presbyterian Hospital Mission in Ganado, AZ with the Navajo Indians. He loved patient care, bedside teaching, diagnostic problems, reading, medical science and literature, sailing in the Caribbean, hiking, swimming, and traveling with his wife.

He married Joan Ronnow in 1951 before medical school and raised three sons and two daughters. He divorced and remarried over 34 years to Nancy (Emerson) Dillard. Nancy had one daughter from her previous marriage, Raina Johnson-Ketchum and granddaughters, Ashley M. Johson and Laney Ketchum.

Stafford is survived by his wife, Nancy; children, William S. (Cynthia) Gedge, James (Michael) Gedge, Christine (Michael) Richards, Susan (Dennis) Nelson and Robert S. Gedge; stepdaughter, Raina (Michon) Johnson-Ketchum; eleven grandchildren; and eleven great-grandchildren; sisters, Nancy Daugherty of South Carolina and Carolyn McCarthy of Lakeville, CT.

Even after death, he is contributing to his love of teaching by donating his body for Medical Study to the Mayo Foundation.

The memorial service will be held at 10:30 a.m. Thursday, October 6, 2022 in the River Park Chapel at Macken Funeral Home.  Visitation will be held one hour prior to the service.

The family requests any memorials to the Mayo Hospice Program

A very special thank you from the Stafford Gedge family for the wonderful Mayo Hospice team and the house bound care that was given to him and his family during this very difficult time.