Joe Siegenberg was a surgeon in British Columbia, Canada. He was born on 3 January 1927 in Johannesburg, South Africa, the son of Lewis (Lou) Siegenberg and Sarah Siegenberg née Bernstein. He was a self-starter, an individual who, even though he came from a challenging, difficult background, managed to become a charismatic, caring human being. Even though he lost his father at the age of seven and his mother had to put him and his brother in an orphanage so she could work, against all the odds he became a prefect at school and was the cantor at his school’s synagogue. Not only did Joe do well academically, he also excelled at many sports, including javelin throwing, soccer, tennis, cricket and squash, and later on at Witwatersrand University in Johannesburg became a champion middleweight boxer whilst attending medical school there. Prior to medical school he went into the Army and was stationed in Italy and the Suez Canal. He met my mother, Myrna, at a musical evening one night in Johannesburg when she was 17 and he 22. It was mutual love at first sight, with my father falling for my mother’s quiet, sweet Titian beauty and my mother attracted to his disarming intelligence, blond hair and green eyes. Not long after they married, Joe, with his beloved ‘Emmy’ in tow, moved to London in 1955, where he pursued his FRCS and where his daughter, Anne (myself), was born a few years later. Following their time in the UK, Joe with his wife and daughter emigrated to Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. During his career, Joe was first and foremost a surgeon and a family physician. During his 33-year tenure, he performed hundreds of surgeries and trained hundreds of residents at the Royal Alexandra Hospital, where he specialised in gastrointestinal surgery. He was notorious among his surgical residents due to his insistence on them going for runs around the hospital between surgeries in order to remain fit and to prepare them for the tireless work required as an on-call surgeon. Despite his busy schedule, he also participated in medical research. His focus was on the responses of a variety of organs and tissues to surgery, with canines and golden hamsters as model organisms. In 1960, he published a paper on ‘Post-operative intussusception in the dog’ in the *Canadian Veterinary Journal* (1960 Oct;1[10]:452-6). Although intussusception is rare it affects 1 in 2,000 children and can be deadly if not diagnosed and treated correctly. In a paper published in the *Canadian Journal of Surgery* he studied the effects of tumours induced by methylcholanthrene in the gallbladder and liver of the golden hamster (‘Further studies on methylcholanthrene-induced tumours of the gallbladder and liver in the golden hamster.’ *Can J Surg*. 1963 Jul;6:367-71). He later published a case study on pancreatic pseudocysts (‘Unusual presentation of a pancreatic pseudocyst: a case report.’ *Can J Surg*. 1987 Jul;30[4]:281-2). Being the Renaissance man that he was, Joe was not content with just being a surgeon/physician, he was also widely read, particularly in the areas of English literature and history, spoke a number of foreign languages, and was responsible for bringing the game of squash to junior players in western Canada. He also took a great interest in Churchill, having crossed paths with him as an impressionable student on the streets of London, becoming president of the Winston Churchill Society for many years. My father was a great speech writer and orator, and our family would look forward every year to hearing his well-informed speeches about the people surrounding Churchill, who he would invite to speak to the society each year, including Churchill’s daughter, Lady Soames, and his biographer Martin Gilbert, who both knew my father personally. Joe was also an incredibly loving grandfather who doted on his grandsons. My father never viewed his grand parenting duties as a chore, but as an honour, an opportunity to spend quality time with his grandchildren, Zaccary and Aydan, and enjoy re-living his childhood through them. My father also enjoyed doing locums for some of the general practitioners in Richmond, a suburb of Vancouver, right up until the age of 80. Joe did not retire easily, and after a few years his health began to deteriorate and he was forced to deal with the challenges of cancer, a pacemaker and, later, developing a form of dementia. From the beginning, I remember my father Joe as always being a very happy, positive person with a great sense of humour. His loving encouragement in every interest and activity I pursued was palpable – from running the 100-yard dash in high school track and field, to patiently teaching me chemistry, to always being there for me during my piano competitions with a linen handkerchief in tow to dry my sweaty hands. What was incredible to me as his daughter, and I think was his greatest feat, was that, even though Joe suffered memory loss, the beautiful, caring person that he was always shone through, greeting people in the Steveston streets where they resided, whilst walking with my Mom, telling every woman she was beautiful. When Joe Siegenberg passed away on 13 June 2015 at the age of 88 he left his family a beautiful, inspiring legacy of love, deep caring for the suffering and pain of others, and of never giving up.