Stanley W. Lipinski passed away of natural causes on October 25, He had just turned 90, but it had been a remarkable 90 years. He was born on October 6, outside of Winnipeg, Canada to his father, a Prussian immigrant named Stanislaus Wnuk Lipinski, and his mother Caroline Spraka whose family had con from Czechoslovakia. The youngest of three children, his life was forever altered by the death of his father when he was 6 months old. Having no money or prospects in Canada, his mother moved back to her home town, Minto, North Dakota.
A prairie town of people made up mainly of immigrants from Poland, Germany, Norway, and Ireland. Stan always said residing in Minto was like living at the United Nations. He grew up dirt poor but never knew it. Being the youngest of 11 people in the family caused him strange dieting fetishes.
At Thanksgiving dinner, his children would always ask him why he ate the turkey""s feet, neck and gizzards. Later, he admitted that when he was 15 the farthest placed he might have traveled would be Chicago.
Being an orthopedic surgeon was the last thing on his mind. He remembered all his life that during the depression the homeless people traveled west on the Union Pacific Railroad in search of a job. As poor as Stan""s family was, no homeless person was ever denied a sandwich when they stopped by his house.
This experience stayed with him his whole life. All the changed when he joined the U. Marines during World War II in Coming back to Minto in , he made the best and maybe luckiest decision of his life to marry Dee. His second lucky break was when he applied for and received benefits under the G. Bill which allowed him to attend and graduate from Purdue, University of Minnesota and later attend medical school from the Northwestern University.
