Saturday, June 29, 2024
My brother Ted was an extraordinary person. He was many things; Husband, Father, Grandfather, Engineer, and Politician.
He was above all else passionate.
Growing up Ted had many hobbies. He was passionate about each of them.
He was an avid shortwave radio listener. His wall was covered with verification cards, posters and awards from all over the eastern block. I can only imagine the looks the postman gave our mum when delivering mail from Albania or China during the cold war.
At age 12 he was making his own telescopes, grinding his own mirrors and testing them for focal length and spherical aberration. I used to accompany him downtown to monthly meetings of the Royal Astronomical Society in Montreal both to attend lectures and to book time on their telescope, which at the time was behind the McGill stadium.
Like many hobbies, they soon took second place to education, career, marriage and starting a family, but they were never forgotten completely.
Canadians like to complain about two things: the weather and politics. While there is little one can do about the first and a lot that can be done about the second, people rarely do so. Before joining NRC Ted ran as a candidate in the Reform party of Canada for the riding of Renfrew-Nippising-Pembrook in both the 1993 and 1997 elections. Now this riding had been liberal going back to Laurier, one might ask why bother? You have no chance of winning! It is a measure of Teds passion to reform government that not only did he make significant inroads he managed to change peoples perspectives. He probably would have had a third go at it, but by then he had joined NRC and the government frowns on its civil servants running for office.
He was passionate in Engineering; be it stress analysis on water bombers or any aspect of aerospace. I remember at one labour day get together, he was excited about an out of print book that he had just purchased on the Horton brothers flying wing. He always took airworthiness and safety very seriously. He once told me that his job at NRC was to make sure that Pilots and Crew made it home to their families at the end of the day.
Lastly Ted was fiercely passionate and proud of his family. Rosemary, his wife of almost 37 years was a high school sweetheart. He was proud of each of his children, Rolf, Erica, and Hans, and of their achievements. Lastly he was tickled to be able to meet his first grandchild Anna.
Ted was a man of many talents, and passions, the like rarely seen today.
I know he will be missed by everyone who knew him.
