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Vasile Zamfir
July 10, 1932 - November 21, 2022
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<div itemprop="description">Born on July 10th, 1932, in the family farmhouse of Vacaresti, Romania, son of Alexandrina (nee Filip) and Florea Zanfir. He was the second of three boys, Nicolae (Nae), Vasile (Bazi), and Costantin (Costel).<br><br>His brother Nae would go on to become chief over the whole Romanian commercial naval fleet. He married and had a daughter who would become a doctor and his brother Costel was crushed to death in a tragic work accident shortly after secretly marrying his sweetheart.<br><br>As a young boy, Vasile would tend to the family animals, sheep mainly, and help in the gardens or walk barefoot to the village school.<br><br>Vasile worked hard and studied to pass the exam for medicine and came in second place in all the nation. He could have gone on to Russia to study, but stayed home to work. After he graduated he was sent to be a doctor over several villages, having to walk or use an ox and cart. Later he would use his own motorcycle.<br>For at least a year he was a petroleum ship doctor, crossing the equator at least twice. He was a major lieutenant in the Romanian army. He passed an exam and was placed as a doctor in Bucharest and worked as an anathesiologist for the children's hospital there. Later in his career he became a professor at the University of Medicine in Bucharest where he caught the interest of the beautiful Mariana Dogar. They were married Aug 2, 1974.<br><br>He took an assignment in the Congo at the Kinsasa Medical Teaching Hospital. Their first son Andrei (Costin) was born there. During this time Vasile made friends with Belgian colleagues and planned to work in Belgium. Due to threats of persecution towards his family by the Communist Government though, he was pressured to return from the Congo to Romania. There he had his second son, Daniel (Dani). <br>World Health Organisation offered him work in the USA, but Romania refused him a passport and treated him as a possible spy for his international connections, randomly searching the family home for evidence. He continued to work until the Democratic Revolution began in December 1989. That following year, he and Mariana accompanied an ill family friend to Boston. After a failed residency attempt there, they tried Montreal, Canada and were granted residency and refugee status. Two years later they were able to send for their boys to join them in their new life in Canada. And the rest, as they say, is history.<br><br>He loved photography, classical music, reading medical books.<br>He would remind his boys often that life is a battle. Work hard. Family is everything.<br><br>He is survived by his two sons, their wives, and his grandchildren.<br></div>