Devoted Doctor Dies With Wife in Catalina Fire

After fire broke out in his Santa Catalina Island home, Dr. Robert Staff made it out to the porch with the help of a neighbor. Staff, however, knew his wife was in a downstairs bedroom.

Without hesitation, Staff, 83, who had spent decades as Catalina’s only physician, hurried back inside, Sheriff’s Deputy Burt Lyon said.

But both Staff and his 78-year-old wife, Virginia, died in the fire.

“That was very typical of who he was,” said Lyon, who was the first officer on the scene Sunday morning. “He devoted his life to helping people. And he’d been married for 53 years and you never saw them apart.”

Staff, known to everyone on the island as Dr. Bob, was one of the last of Southern California’s small-town doctors, a generalist who did everything and treated everyone. He performed surgery. He fixed broken bones. He made house calls. And he delivered babies.

Staff, who retired last year, delivered about half of Avalon’s residents, Lyon said. In fact, he delivered Lyon and several firefighters who responded to the fire.

“He was a real gentle man and very passionate about the people in Avalon,” Lyon said. “He didn’t care about money. Some people who couldn’t afford to pay him brought him fish or chickens or would just make him dinner.”

Staff moved to Catalina in 1955 after spending seven years as a doctor in Alaska, said his son, John, 47, of Sierra Madre.

“He delivered me in Alaska and there was 9 feet of snow outside,” John Staff said. “Catalina was my mom’s choice. It was as far away from Alaska as possible. And my father always had a thing for small communities.”

For more than 20 years, Robert Staff was the island’s only doctor. Sometimes he showed up for house calls on his bicycle. Sometimes he showed up wearing a bathing suit. But he always showed up when needed.

One weekend afternoon, when Lyon was 5, he split his head open and his frantic mother called Dr. Bob.

“He came right over to our house, picked me up and said to my mother: ‘We’ll be back in a little bit,’ ” Lyon said. “He took me to the clinic, which was closed. He opened it up, stitched me up and took me back home when he was done.”

Staff and his wife, who had five children, probably died of smoke inhalation, authorities said. The investigation is continuing, and the cause of the blaze has not been determined.

Lyon said Staff’s last words were: “I’ve got to go back in and get Ginny.”

Staff’s son said he was not surprised.

“He always called my mother his bride. Every time they went out on a weekend trip, he’d call it a second honeymoon,” John Staff said.

“They were very cute together. It’s very hard to imagine either one on their own.”