William “Bill” Wade Spore, M.D.

William “Bill” Wade Spore, M.D.

OBITUARY

Born in upstate New York in 1935, Bill passed away following surgical complications on August 12, 2024. In 1943, his family moved to San Diego. He attended Jefferson grammar school, Roosevelt Jr. High and graduated from San Diego High in 1952 where he was Junior Class President and ASB Veep. Bill earned a bachelor’s degree from UC Berkeley in 1957 and his medical degree from Stanford University School of Medicine in 1961. Following a one-year internship at Los Angeles County Harbor General Hospital, he served three years as a general medical officer in the United States Navy. After a year of private general practice in San Diego he returned to L.A. County Harbor Hospital for a residency in Obstetrics and Gynecology. The remainder of his professional life was spent in San Diego as a Kaiser Permanente physician.An avid sportsman and physical fitness advocate, Bill lettered four years on both the Cal swimming and water polo teams, co-captaining both teams as a senior. He was president of Beta Theta Pi fraternity and belonged to several campus honor societies. He played slo-pitch softball in the Point Loma Senior League for twenty-five years, jogged daily on the soft sand in Mission Beach until his hips finally wore out, then returned to swimming for general conditioning. In 2015 he swam the Catalina Channel with a relay team of eighty-year-old men, setting an international record. Bill began skiing at age six. At sixty-two he switched to snowboarding for the next twenty years. He began surfing at age forty, following that passion until the age of eighty-two having surfed numerous California, Hawaiian and Baja surf sites, Jeffreys Bay, South Africa, and Byron Bay, Australia. Upon retirement from medicine, Bill took up cycling, touring on bicycle much of the United States, parts of Europe and most of California with his beloved “Cyclo-Path” fellow riders.Above all, spending time with his family mattered most. For eighteen memorable Easter vacations, he took his family on camping trips, setting up on the sands of Guaymas, Mexico. For twenty-seven years he took countless ski trips with family and friends to June Lake, California, staying in the cabin he built with his brother-in-law and several friends.Bill is survived by Grace, his wife of sixty-six years, his three sons, Eric, Brock, Dain, his daughter, Ingrid, their spouses, seven grandchildren, and his sister, Adrienne. He was preceded in death by his daughter, Lorraine Anne. His ashes will be interred next to hers following funeral services at All Souls Episcopal Church on September 5th.Most of all, “Dr. Bill” would like to be remembered as a loving, caring, and devoted husband, father and grandfather.