Dr. Gerald Nora was Cardinal John Cody’s doctor, and he was confident enough in his professional knowledge to once offer medical advice to the pope.
That sense of confidence ran in the family: Dr. Nora was the son of a doctor, the brother of three doctors and the father of four others.
“A very admired medical family, the Noras,” said Dr. Philip Sheridan, who went to medical school with Dr. Nora. “The whole family had a sense of determination, of going ahead and doing the right thing.”
Dr. Nora, 81, died Wednesday, July 19, in Highland Park Hospital, said his son Gerald Nora. He had been suffering from various ailments, including liver and kidney failure, his son said.
Dr. Nora grew up in the South Shore neighborhood and graduated from Mt. Carmel High School before leaving for Loras College. But World War II interrupted his education. He entered the Army as a combat engineer, but medics were short, and half of his class got shifted over to that duty, Gerald Nora said.
During the Rhineland campaign in Europe, Dr. Nora was with a group of soldiers marching behind a tank when it rolled over a mine and exploded. The explosion killed dozens of soldiers. Dr. Nora was pulled out from a pile of bodies, one of the few to survive, his son said.
He recovered from his wounds and returned to combat, eventually receiving three battle citations, his son said.
A medical career had always been his plan, and he worried that the war would keep him away too long to go to medical school. When he did return home from the service, he tackled his education wholeheartedly, graduating from medical school at Loyola University in Chicago in 1950.
The post-war students were a serious group, and Dr. Nora remained a no-nonsense sort throughout his life. “When you’ve been shot up … you find out what your parents and teachers were telling you was true, and you pay attention,” said Sheridan.
“He was a very serious guy,” Sheridan said. “Our social activities were pretty serious, maybe a nice dinner, go to a concert–not jazz, a symphony. The talk might well have been about Shakespeare, although inevitably medicine would enter the conversation.”
Dr. Nora took over the practice of his father, Dr. Ernest Nora, and was on the staff at Columbus Hospital until his 1998 retirement. He and his family lived in Edgewater before moving to Evanston in 1962.
As in the war, he proved throughout life an ability to bounce back from a tough blow. His first wife, Lois, died in 1955 of an aneurysm. Already with four children, he remarried and had four more children–“redoubled the strength of our family,” Gerald Nora said.
Dr. Nora also lost a daughter, Dianne, a nurse who died in 1986 at age 26. He responded by working even harder, becoming board certified in geriatrics, his son said.
As personal physician for Cody, head of the Chicago Archdiocese from 1965 until 1982, Dr. Nora was invited to a private dinner at the cardinal’s residence when Pope John Paul II came to Chicago in 1979.
“The pope came in, and dad and mom retired to the furthest corner of the room, and the pope planted himself in the same place,” Nora said. The pope blessed the couple, and when Dr. Nora noticed how tired he looked, he suggested the pontiff skip dinner and get to bed. The pope took the doctor’s advice, according to Gerald Nora.
Dr. Nora also is survived by his wife, Patricia; two brothers, Joseph and Paul; a sister, Grace Donnellan; three other sons, Frederick, Richard and Robert; three daughters, Lois, Nancy and Valerie; 17 grandchildren; and a great-grandchild.
Mass will be said at 11:30 a.m. Saturday in St. Joseph Catholic Church, 1747 Lake Ave., Wilmette.
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ttjensen@tribune.com
