January 29, 1932 - May 2, 2022
In Loving Memory ~
Denis was born on January 29, 1932 in Karachi, British India. At age fourteen he was sent to England; after completing school and his military service in the RAF, he emigrated to Canada aged twenty-one. Following some years in the reserve RCAF, studying architecture at UBC, and flying as a bush pilot, he joined Air Canada in 1957.
He lived in Vancouver, Montreal and Toronto before retiring to Saltspring Island in 1989. In most of these locations he left behind houses which he designed and built from scratch, or substantially renovated. In his late 70s, when most people would think of moving into a nice manageable apartment, he bought two acres of forest in the Comox Valley and commissioned yet another house. He worried his children by continuing to use a chainsaw well into his eighties, but he survived this to die peacefully at home on May 2, 2022, aged 90.
Denis was predeceased by his first wife Elisabeth, his brother Ian and sister Patricia. He was husband to Pat Daniel for 40 years, father to Adam, Matthew (Monica) and Genevieve (Brad), and grandfather to Daniel, Mitchel, Chenoa, Theodore and Griffin.
Denis's family has scattered his ashes in the ocean at Seal Bay Nature Park, near his and Pat's home.