The Moran Family Story
Please forgive the pretentiousness of including this at the web site, but some of our guests have asked for "the story." The best "story" that I could come up with was an excerpt from Ray Brandes's Book "Coronado: We Remember" (Published by the Coronado Historical Association and the Coronado Beach Museum in 1993).
The Moran Family in Coronado, A Brief History
It was 1957 when Dr. James Moran moved family to Coronado. He was forty-eight years old and a Navy Ob-Gyn Doctor at Balboa Hospital. The family rented a house at "F" and Toledo, while their Alder Street home was being completed. It was one of many houses being built as part of Bill Starr's housing development that replaced the polo grounds by North Beach.
After a few years Dr. Moran became Chairman of Obstetrics and Gynecology at Balboa. He served in this capacity till he retired from the Navy in 1962 to join his friend and associate Dr. George Sanger in the private practice of Obstetrics and Gynecology in Coronado. Although the two were never formal partners, they would later share an office on Ynez Place. As the years wore on, Dr. Moran became unable to keep up with the physical rigors of the solo practice of obstetrics and retired in 1979. He did, however, continue to serve as the Medical Director of the Skilled Nursing Facility at Coronado Hospital. Then in 1980 tragedy struck: Dr. Moran's wife Grace, while having her hair done in a beauty salon on Orange Avenue, died suddenly. Up till that afternoon she had been symptom free and in full control of her faculties. During the hair treatment she began to appear puzzled. She then interrupted her hair dresser to state that she thought she was having a heart attack and collapsed. She was rushed via ambulance to Coronado Hospital Emergency Room, but nothing could be done for this seventy year old woman, this wife, this mother, this previous English Literature graduate student at Columbia University.
As more years passed Dr. Moran's cerebral function began to fade. Eventually and ironically, it became necessary for Dr. Moran to become an inpatient in the skilled nursing facility where he, only a few months before had been the Medical Director. Today he continues to live in the Villa Coronado (a part of Sharp Coronado Hospital), and the nurses that take care him still address him as "Dr. Moran."
Son Jim Moran, who attended Sacred Heart Elementary School, Saint Augustine High School and San Diego State College, obtained his teaching credential and began teaching in the Coronado Unified School District. After his father retired from the active practice of Ob-Gyn, Dr. James Moran worked as his son's "teacher's aid" five days a week for many years. After seventeen years of teaching, son Jim Moran retired in 1988 at age 41. He currently still resides on "J" Avenue in Coronado. He travels a great deal and substitute teaches in the South Bay School District when he is not traveling.
In their youth, brothers Jim and Tom Moran frequently went surfing with brothers Mike and Steve Nystul, who lived around the corner on Ocean Court. Tom and Steve went on to college, medical school, and Obstetrics and Gynecology residencies, although on different sides of the continent. They would intermittently see each other every other Christmas, or maybe during the Fourth of July. After residency, Steve went into private practice in Coronado. Tom owed the Navy years of service for financial support during medical school. The Navy sent young Dr. Moran and his family to Subic Bay in the Republic of the Philippines for two years. In 1986, on the day he returned to the continental United States, Steve called Tom to inform him that Dr. George Sanger was considering retirement and probably some type of a transition could be arranged. One thing led to another and Tom eventually acquired Dr. Sanger's practice. In fact, for the first two and a half years of private practice, young Dr. Moran was in the same office on Ynez Place that he used to run up and down the hallway as a child, waiting for his dad to finish work. Dr. Moran has since moved his office to the Physicians Medical Center next to Sharp Coronado Hospital.
It was during medical school that Tom met Rosann Fiastro, a staff nurse at one of the teaching hospitals that University of Maryland medical students rotated through. She is the cousin of one of his medical school classmates. They were married in 1980, one day after Tom finished medical school and six days before he stated his residency training. Tom's brother Jim was the best man. George Murphy of the Murphy family and Loc Vetter, M.D. of the Vetter family were present at the Baltimore wedding. Their first son Shaun was born in Baltimore hospital in 1982. Their youngest son Ryan was born in the Naval Hospital in Subic Bay in 1984. The family currently resides on Ocean Boulevard, just around the corner for the original Alder Street house. ___________________________________________________________________
Note: Since Dr. Brandes's book was published in 1993 and many things have changed. For example Dr. Moran senior passed away March 21, 1994. And the Moran family (Tom, Rosann, Shaun and Ryan) moved from the Ocean Boulevard house (The "Coronado Beach House") to the "original Alder Street house." I left the "story" unchanged, because I felt the fact that it had been "published" gave it some kind of dignity.