Dr. Peter Teel died Saturday, Jan. 22, at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston surrounded by his family. He was 83.

Peter was born in Boston on July 16, 1927, the first child of Dr. Harold M. Teel and Eleanor W. Teel. His father moved the family to a ranch on Flathead Lake in northwestern Montana in 1939.

After graduating from Polson High School in Montana in 1944, he attended the University of Montana in Missoula and the American University of Beirut in Lebanon, and completed Harvard Medical School in 1952. While in medical school he met Katherine Brehm Tilton of Chilmark, whom he married on May 31, 1952. After completing his residency and surgical training, he was drafted into the Navy and served as medical officer aboard the aircraft carrier U.S.S. Essex in the western Pacific until 1956.

Following his naval service, Peter maintained a surgical practice in Billings, Mont., where he retired in 1990. Subsequently he split his time between his home on Flathead Lake, Mont., and the family home on the Vineyard. Peter and Katherine also traveled extensively, most recently to Southeast Asia. Throughout his life he enjoyed fishing, hunting, hiking and cross-country skiing with family and friends, as well as gardening, reading and listening to music. He had a memorably wry sense of humor.

Peter was predeceased by his daughter, Elizabeth Ann Teel. He will be sorely missed by his loving wife of 58 years and by his sons, Derrick B. Teel and his wife, Kathryn A. Teel, of New Providence, N.J., and Philip C. Teel and his wife, Linda G. Teel, of Cumberland, R.I., and his five grandchildren. He is also survived by his sister, Eleanor Fischer, of Newtown, Pa., and a niece, Katherine Taylor, of Chicago, Ill.

A memorial service will be held this summer on the Vineyard.