Dad often said you must play the cards you are dealt in life. He spoke from experience having no choice but to play the poor hand he received in his youth.
Dad was born on August 30, 1930 in Cochrane, Ontario, a town that the Chalmers family helped pioneer in a previous generation. Cochrane has short summers and brutally cold winters. He arrived at the beginning of the depression.
Dad’s mother died when he was two years old. His father worked in remote mining towns and was overseas for six years during World War II.
Dad fondly spoke of working on the Chalmers dairy farm despite growing up in a house that was heated with firewood in a climate that experienced – 40 °F temperatures. He shared a room with the hired man and remembered the window thick with ice on the inside because the room was unheated.
Dad worked hard on the farm. He also worked hard in school and realized his strong suit was being a voracious reader with an outstanding memory. He was often called upon to read in class and perform in church. Dad was also a witness to history, having grown up playing hockey with Tim Horton, seeing the Dionne quintuplets, and living through World War II.
Dad was unable to stay in school past grade ten. He worked for a lumber company and for Lands and Forests for a couple of years, which taught him his future was in southern Ontario. He knew he wanted to work with electricity and made his way to Toronto in the late 40’s. He responded to an Ontario Hydro job posting as an architectural draftsman. He told the interviewer he could not draw a straight line but wanted to work with electricity. The interviewer arranged for dad to interview in London where he was hired as an operator. He did not have any money for his first week’s room and board. He borrowed $10 from his manager and started employment with Ontario Hydro where he worked his entire career.
Dad learned electricity from Ontario Hydro and an International Correspondence School course. He was considered a power engineer despite his lack of formal education. He could design and troubleshoot electrical distribution services including fuse coordination, load calculation, transformer sizing, conductor sizing and switching.
Dad met Glenna Rogers in London who was training as a nurse. She often said there was something exceptional about our father. She was right but it was not his income. They were married in 1952 and started life together in Windsor on dad’s salary of $230 per month. This began an almost 50-year love affair and partnership. Dad drew a royal flush when he married mom. She gave him the support, home, and family he had not had as a child.
Mom gave up her nursing career to look after the family that soon arrived with Tom, Nora, and Bill. Mom supported dad as he worked to impress Ontario Hydro. The story they often told about what life was like for a young couple in the 1950’s was the difficulty they had getting approved for an $80 per month mortgage.
Dad’s abilities were noticed by Ontario Hydro in 1961 and the family moved to London where he started a sales job promoting electric heat. Dad spent many evenings teaching electricians and engineers heat loss calculations and the electric heat design while mom was home with four children after Jim arrived. They built a three-bedroom house for the six of us in a subdivision with other young families.
Dad was promoted to Manager for Ontario Hydro’s Kent Area in 1967. Although the job was usually held by an older person with an engineering degree, dad’s electrical knowledge qualified him for the job until his retirement in the late 1980’s. Dad was blessed with the perfect job. He loved electrical distribution and the many challenges of dealing with technology, unions, bureaucracy, customers, and weather. His crowning achievement was managing the rebuilding of Kent’s electrical system after it was destroyed in the 1976 ice storm.
Dad’s promotion brought the family to Southwestern Ontario. Mom and dad chose to live in Blenheim so the family would benefit from being in a smaller community. They bought the house on Talbot Street that mom loved and dad always considered home. They became part of a wonderful community and even learned dad had many local relatives because his mother originally came from Shrewsbury.
Mom and dad enjoyed a large group of friends who went to church, supported service organizations, played bridge, attended London’s Grand Theatre and spent many afternoons enjoying each other’s company. Mom and dad brightened up the world with extensive flower gardens with an emphasis on roses. Dad and friends fished in Lake Erie.
Dad participated in local politics and the church. He was a member of Blenheim Town Council, a school board trustee, liaison with Erie Beach and Erieau electrical commission, and served for many years on the Kent County land division committee. Dad was a lay minister who preached at many United Churches. He was a delegate to the United Church General Council and served on the education committee. Dad was on an advisory board for the Chatham-Kent Health system and participated in the Ridge Players musical.
Dad and mom were part of what’s called the greatest generation. They benefitted from a time when people with grade ten education could advance in their careers and become middle class citizens. Mom and dad provided four children with a comfortable home, clean clothes, good food and most importantly, an education. Mom and dad made saving money for children’s education a priority and took great pleasure in their children’s achievements.
Sadly, mom became ill in the mid 90’s. Dad was her primary caregiver. They rebuilt the house so she could be comfortable in the home she loved util she died in 2001, ending the retirement they enjoyed for several years.
Dad made the best of the last 22 years of his life alone. He did everything a person of advancing years should do to preserve their memory. He read several newspapers every day, continued reading voraciously and played competitive duplicate bridge. Days before dying, he and his bridge partner were first in the weekly tournament.
Most importantly, dad assumed the role of family patriarch. He followed family through emails, phone calls, Facebook and attendance at weddings and family events. He saw his family grow to include his children and their spouses: Tom and Lynda, Nora and Norm, Bill and Corinne and Jim and Charlene. His grandchildren and their spouses and children included Luke and Allison and their sons Ben, Teddy and Marty, Carly and Mitchell, Roslyn and Ryan and their son Lucas Jordan, Spenser and Jesse, Laura and Chad and their children Hazel and Jack, Joel and Emma and their son Finn, Stacey and Michael and their son Xavier, Cara and Brad and their sons Liam and Nolan, Jodi, Wesley, and Justin.
The family is gathering privately at Evergreen Cemetery to celebrate a hand well played and fulfill Wes’ desire to be interred with Glenna.
Blenheim Community Funeral Home entrusted with funeral arrangements. Friends wishing to remember Dad with a memorial donation are asked to consider the Canadian Red Cross https://www.redcross.ca/donate . Online condolences and memorial donations may be left at www.blenheimcommunityfuneralhome.com
