Velta Maria Cannon

Dr. Velta Flugina Briuks Cannon, 95, of Dillsboro died Thursday, July 11, 2013. She was born April 14, 1918 in Kharkov, Ukraine, the only child of Latvian parents Jakobs and Amelia (Saulita Flugins. She grew up in Riga, Latvia, between the two World Wars. She graduated medical school at 23 during World War II and was pressed into service as a plastic surgeon by both the occupying Russians and then the Germans. Three hours before the final Russian invasion that closed the iron curtain on Latvia after 45 years, she found herself aboard a hospital ship fleeing across the Baltic Sea. Before the ship arrived in Kiel, Germany, the war in Europe was over and Velta was a refugee. Velta spent the next 4 ½ years working as a physician for the US 7th Army, tending refugees. She immigrated to the United States in 1949 and worked as night nurse in a hospital nursery in Kalamazoo, Michigan, while honing her English. Deciding she would not be taken seriously as a 5’3” female plastic surgeon, she returned to medical school at the University of Kentucky and changed her specialty to pediatrics. Upon finishing her residency, she took a job in a pediatric clinic in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, in 1954. In 1960, she met her future husband, James C. Cannon, Jr. of Dillsboro, at a party after a University of Tennessee football game. They were married in 1961 and had two children: John who currently lives in Sylva, and Maria, who lives in Orlando. Velta opened her pediatric practice in Sylva in 1963, when there were fewer than a dozen doctors in Jackson County. She was “baby-doctor” to many, many children from all over Western North Carolina until she retired at 72 in 1990. She and her husband, Jim, had many wonderful years of retirement together, including a visit to her homeland in 2000. After Jim died in 2004, Velta continued to live in her Dillsboro home until she was nearly 92. Arthritis gradually took her independence away, but she spent most of her last three years at home as well, made possible only with the assistance of wonderful caregivers, especially Helen and Sandra. In her last seven months, she was cared for by the dedicated staff at Skyland Care Center. A Memorial Service will be held Tuesday, July 16th at 11:00 am at St. John’s Episcopal Church in Sylva. The Family will receive friends at Appalachian Funeral Services on Monday, July 15th from 6 until 8 pm. . .