A beloved maverick dead at 88

Dick Huntsman wowed med students at Memorial University

A former Memorial University medical school professor is being remembered fondly by those who knew him for his charisma, intelligence and eccentricity.

Richard (Dick) George Huntsman died March 7 at a care home in Taverham, Norfolk, U.K., two days after his 88th birthday.

He had been fighting vascular dementia, but as his death notice in The Telegram said, he left his family before he lost the ability to recognize and communicate with them.

Huntsman was born in 1927 in Perak, Malaya — now part of Malaysia — and lived there long enough to receive the gift of an elephant for his third birthday. The family moved to the United Kingdom shortly after.

In England, he received a scholarship to Cambridge University, where he received a gold medal for his doctor of medicine thesis.

He met the woman who would become his wife, Elaine Deakan, during a procedure involving a lumbar puncture. She was a nurse. Together they raised eight children and had 17 grandchildren.

When the Huntsmans eventually immigrated to St. John’s, the move was recorded in a London newspaper under the headline, “Another family down the brain drain.”

In St. John’s, Huntsman pursued a career in teaching and impressed many medical students at Memorial University, including his son, Dr. David Huntsman.

“He was an extremely charismatic and flamboyant professor that would make any subject more interesting,” he said.

The elder Huntsman also directed the a blood transfusion service for the Canadian Red Cross, where he left a lasting impression on many people, in- cluding his colleague Don Bradbury.

“He was a very caring person. Very smart and very intelligent, too,” said Bradbury. “He would go to great lengths to help a cause he believed in.”

During his tenure at Memorial University, Huntsman was the first teacher to receive multiple Silver Orator Awards — four in total — which were given to the faculty member who most impressed the graduating class of medical students.

Among his many interests and achievements, he enjoyed the Middle East and taught himself Arabic to help him better understand the region. He sailed the Atlantic Ocean twice in a small converted fishing boat.

“He read a lot of books on heavy-weather sailing and he wanted to do that, so he sailed a boat he had built in England,” said David Huntsman. “He and my older sister, Jennifer, and two others sailed across the Atlantic, and when he realized he may want to retire someday, he sailed it back to England.”

Huntsman was renowned for his Christmas parties, and would frequently search out opportunities to help out all sorts of people, according to family and friends.

One case involved a Ghanaian physician, one of Huntsman’s trainees, who died after returning to Africa, leaving his wife and four children in a difficult situation without much money. It was later learned that Huntsman had paid for the four children to go to Britain for university.

“He was brilliant and also quite eccentric, and iconoclastic. Even though he might have been viewed as part of the establishment, he was quite antiestablishment,” said David Huntsman.

“You put it all together and you have someone that definitely marches to their own music.”

Huntsman is survived by his wife and children: Jennifer (Ken), Alice (Krim), Rachel ( Jerome), David (Tanya), Lucy ( Jerome), Tim (Patricia), Philippa (Charles), and Richard (Sunmi); his grandchildren, his sister, Mary, and the many friends and students he met throughout his life.

The funeral is being held today in Brancaster Staithe, Norfolk, where Rev. Michael Langford — a friend and colleague from Memorial University — will deliver the eulogy.