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Today’s obituaries: Doreen C. Averill-Garafolo worked at Bristol Myers Squibb, became a nurse
Updated Feb 22, 2021;
Doreen C. Luongo Averill-Garafolo, 52, of Tully, died Friday of cancer.
She was born in Newark, N.J., she graduated from Union High School in Union, N.J., in 1986. She moved to Syracuse in 1989.
She worked for Bristol Myers Squibb for 22 years until they closed, and then received her degree at St. Joseph’s School of Nursing in Syracuse to become a registered nurse. She most recently worked as a private duty nurse.
The Globe and Mail Lisa Fitterman Published February 15, 2021
Courtesy of the Family
When Thomas Dignan was in Grade 8, his teacher told his parents he would not amount to much and recommended he attend a trade school. Growing up on Hamilton’s working-class, rough-and-tumble east side, Dr. Dignan, a Mohawk with roots in Six Nations of the Grand River territory, spent the rest of his life proving that teacher wrong.
He was not an indifferent student, not a bit. Rather, he had dyslexia and once the problem was diagnosed, his ambition, energy and interests eventually led him to become a nurse, then a nursing instructor, then the first Indigenous person to graduate from McMaster University’s medical school, then a licensed pilot who pursued his practice by flying his own plane to remote communities in northern Ontario.