With saddened hearts the family of Wilfred Guymer will bid him farewell on his final journey; he passed away Friday, January 18, 2013, in Ottawa, Ontario, at the age of 98 years.
Wilfred is survived by his daughters Myrna (Glen Campbell) of Denare Beach, SK., Vernice Woodward (Fred) of Kelowna, BC; son Calvin (Deborah) of Rockland, ON; sister Lily Schuman of Flin Flon, MB; sister-in-law Agnes Hayman of Ottawa.
Wilfred is also survived by 15 grandchildren: Shannon Houghton (Jim), Arlee Mitchell, Dianne Hominick (Rob), Allison Staple (Bob), Tracy White (George Shrigley), Janice White (Mike Spafford), Joanna White; David (Alaina) Guymer, Lynda Rogalski (Larry), Wendy Tutt (John); Lenore Woodward, Kim Bresler (Jeff), Vance Woodward; Donna Guymer (Kevin Simard), Danielle Guymer (Evan Hammell); 27 great grandchildren; 6 great, great grandchildren; and numerous nieces and nephews.
Wilfred was predeceased by his parents Daniel Herbert and Violet Irene (Poynter) Guymer; his first wife - mother of his four children - Irene (Marten); his second wife, Mary (Tiessen); son Wesley Robert; brothers Harry and Frank; sister Lorrie (Newstead) Hutton; and infant great granddaughter Kira Love Staple.
Memorial services were held in Ottawa, and also in Leamington, ON. where some of his ashes were interred with Mary’s.
TRIBUTE
Wilfred Guymer - our Dad - was born in The Pas, Manitoba, Sunday, May 31, 1914 to Daniel Herbert and Violet Guymer.
The death of his father in 1918 from the Spanish Influenza, left his mother, with five young children to raise: the oldest was 11 years, the youngest was 11 months. Dad was four. Gramma Guymer immediately jumped in to run the many businesses: freighting, draying, storage, contracting, and the undertaking business, for which she became Canada’s first female licensed funeral director.
From a very young age, Dad worked alongside his mother. Too young to drive teams of horses, he fed pigs, cleaned barns, and filled wood boxes. He also kept the morgue stove burning in the cold weather when his mother had a body to prepare.
Witnessing his mother’s profession, Dad took an interest in embalming. He decided he wanted to become Canada’s youngest funeral director.
After high school in The Pas, he completed, at age 18, a two-year funeral director and embalming apprenticeship in Winnipeg, only to discover that he was too young to be licensed. Undaunted, in 1932 he set up Guymer’s Funeral Home under his mother’s license in Flin Flon on Main Street at the back of Keddie Hardware. Soon after, he and Charley Lee, a family friend, built a morgue on North Avenue where Dad, operated for almost three years, Flin Flon’s first undertaking business. City records of 1934, show that the Guymer’s Funeral Home and McSorley-Smith Funeral Home were both in operation that year. Until that time, Guymer’s Funeral Home was the only such business in Flin Flon and, in fact, in Northern Manitoba.
In 1935, Dad rented the building to a laundry business, closed the funeral home, and began employment as an underground motorman for Hudson Bay Mining and Smelting Co. Ltd.
In Flin Flon, Dad married our Mom - Irene Marten in 1937. Myrna and Wesley were both born before he enlisted with the Royal Canadian Air Force on April 25, 1941. He began his training at Manning Depot in Brandon, then was sent to Saskatoon for Service Flying Training School. He remembered being excited when he qualified for pilot training, but was sent instead to Winnipeg #3 Wireless School and #5 Bomber and Gunnery School. Dad was top of his class in Drogue shooting and attributed that to his duck and goose hunting while growing up in The Pas. In March 1942, he shipped overseas to Bouremouthe, south coast of England. He spent time for refresher courses in Madly Herferdshire, England, at Straenair on the west coast of Scotland, and at Wigton, Scotland for coastal operation training.
With 29 hours flying time overseas, Dad developed severe ear problems and after six weeks in hospital in Scotland, was medically discharged on June 25, 1943.
Upon his return, the family moved to Island Falls, Saskatchewan where Dad was employed for HBM&S as Transportation and Stockroom Manager from 1943 - 1945. During that time, Mom returned to Flin Flon where Vernice was born in 1944.
In April 1945, he began employment in wildlife management in The Pas where he was instrumental in the organization of the Registered Trapline System in Northern Manitoba. His work took him by many modes: canoe, boat, dog sled, gas car, bush plane, train, and foot, into the reaches of the Canadian Shield and beyond.
Calvin was born in The Pas in 1949 to round out the family - two boys and two girls.
After moving to Winnipeg in 1961, he accepted the position of Fur Administrator for Manitoba, and with his accumulated knowledge of trapping, he compiled a book with sketches and details - most that he had drawn himself, including cover design - of credited methods used by the registered trappers. He sent this compilation to a printing company in Altona for an estimate only, with the thought that it be presented to his bosses, printed and then issued to all trappers. With great chagrin one day at the office, Dad opened a delivered box and found an invoice and 1000 copies of The Trappers `Guide to Better Fur Quality. Dad was fired. However, on inspecting the book, his seniors soon realized its value. Dad was reinstated, and the booklet was published as The Manitoba Trappers`Guide. No mention or credit was ever made of his resourcefulness but, that book, with the philosophy in regard to trapping that it promoted by the content, style and methods, became hallmark. It was copied and shipped all over the continent, and is still in use today.
On October 21, 1965, Mom died in Winnipeg leaving Dad lonely and lost. That March - 1966 - a record-breaking snow storm paralyzed the city. Schools and businesses closed. Vehicles were buried, and people camped out in department stores. Very seldom idle, Dad set out on snowshoes with his packsack, knocked on doors, collected grocery lists, trudged to the nearest convenience store, and made deliveries to his thankful neighbours.
In September 1966, Dad married Mary Tiessen, a public health nurse. They and Calvin moved to Yellowknife, and later Fort Smith where Dad was Superintendent of Industrial Development for the MacKenzie Region of the North West Territories. He was given a federal layoff 1970, and he and Mary moved to Owen Sound, Ontario where Mary continued nursing in public health.
Dad immediately went to work as an attendant at Harrison Park. Later, with his medical knowledge, he gained employment at Lee Manor - a seniors’ home - as an orderly.
In 1971, Dad opened a coffee van service, driving twice a day to building sites, to popular fishing spots along the Sydenham River, and to any place where he might sell the homemade soups, fresh ham, beef, or egg salad sandwiches that he and Mary made the night before.
He was a Big Brother, a community volunteer, and a Toastmaster. He could recite, usually from memory, many of the works of Robert Service. One such, and with proper accent, was A Lancashire Ballad - Bessie`s Boil.
In The Pas, Dad was a member of the Rotary Club, the Royal Canadian Legion Branch #19, and 303 Squadron Royal Canadian Air Cadets, where he served as First Aid Instructor and subsequently, Chief Instructor, attaining the rank of Flying Officer in the R.C.A.F. Reserves. While serving in that capacity, he initiated the introduction of First Nation boys into the organization.
With his interest in wildlife, he and others in the Game Branch set up animal displays on the street for the Northern Manitoba Trappers` Festival each February. Animal rights consciousness, and possibly the economy, put a stop to seeing wolves, bears, lynx, and other fur bearing animals in threatening life-like poses that scared the 40 below wits out of festival spectators.
He was a dedicated member of The Pas Masonic Lodge No. 124, and also in Ontario. He was a life member and Past District Deputy of the Masonic Lodge of Manitoba, and received his 60 year pin for membership in the Masonic order.
From 1970 on, in Ontario, Dad and Mary moved to Chatsworth, to Owen Sound, and to Waterloo until Mary moved to a care facility in Sarsfield. Dad, then moved to live with Cal and Deb in Rockland. Later, he too moved to Sarsfield to be with Mary, who died June 20, 2009.
Dad was a man of nature, a lover of the wilderness and the tranquility of those places. Each year, he embarked on a solo canoe trip - usually for close to two weeks - into Algonquin Park. Dad took his last solo canoe trip at the age of 87!
Our Dad was a voracious reader, a story teller, and a writer. He self-published three books: a chap book, Solipsism, was only distributed to family; Whimsical Wanderings by Wilf - a memoir in 1981; and his third, another memoir in 2000 - Wanderlust and Wildlife still entertains those who love personal stories of 20th century youth to adulthood.
It was a profound loss for us all, and especially for Dad, when Wes died December 1, 2011. Dad had told Wes, you cannot go before me.
Life is never as we want it; wrapped up and perfect. We all have faults. We all have regrets. Our Dad had his. We are proud that he was an innovative thinker, that he was a hard working responsible man. He was respected. We are grateful that he showed us how to laugh, even at ourselves. We are thankful that our family was bound by our loving Dad. His long life was well lived.
Service Of Thanksgiving For The Life Of
Wilfred Guymer
Tuesday, August 6, 2013 11:00 am
Christ Church Anglican, The Pas, Manitoba
Presider: Rev. Rebecca Graham
Co-Presider: Rev. Michael Dickens
Music Ministry: Isobel Halcrow and the Anglican Church Choir
Order of Service:
Pg. 571 Processional Sentences
Hymn: # 597 God Who Touchest Earth
Greeting and Trisagion
The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit, be with you all.
People: And also with you.
In the midst of life we are in death; from whom can we seek help?
From you alone, O Lord, who by our sins are justly angered.
Holy God, holy and mighty, holy immortal one, have mercy upon us.
Lord you know the secrets of our hearts; shut not your ears to our prayers, but spare us, O Lord.
Holy God, holy and mighty, holy immortal one, have mercy upon us.
O worthy and eternal Judge, do not let the pains of death turn us away from you at our last hour.
Holy God, holy and mighty, holy immortal one, have mercy upon us.
Pg. 577 The Collect Amen.
Thanksgiving for Life: Myrna Guymer and Calvin Guymer
Proclamation of the Word: 2 Corinthians 4:7-18 (NIV)
Psalm 15:1-5 (NIV) – Vernice Woodward
Mark 15:33-39; 16:1-7 (NIV)
Hymn: # 29 How Sweet the Hour
Homily: Rev. Rebecca Graham
Pg. 578 Apostles’ Creed
Pg. 579 Prayers of the People
Pg. 584 Lord’s Prayer
Presentation of Medals and Legion Tribute: Comrade Murray Harvey
Commendation
Give rest, O Christ, to your servants with your saints, where sorrow and pain are no more, neither sighing, but life everlasting. You only are immortal, the creator and maker of all; and we are mortal, formed of the earth, and to earth shall we return. For so did you ordain when you created me, saying, “You are dust, and to dust you shall return.” All of us go down to the dust; yet even at the grave we make our song: Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia. Give rest, O Christ, to your servants with your saints, where sorrow and pain are no more, neither sighing, but life everlasting.
Into your hands, O merciful Saviour, we commend your servant Wilfred. Acknowledge, we pray, a sheep of your own fold, a lamb of your own flock, a sinner of your own redeeming. Receive him into the arms of your mercy, into the blessed rest of everlasting peace, and into the glorious company of the saints in light. Amen.
Nunc Dimitis – Choir
Notices
Benediction
Recessional Hymn: # 16 Abide with Me
Last Post will be conducted at the Cemetery.
USHERS
Great grandchildren Jess White and Nic Seymour
HONORARY PALLBEARERS
Jack Halcrow, Murray Harvey, Jennie King,
Bert Lagimodiere, Greg and Verna Lamb,
Gary Morrish, Robin Reader, Clinton Wells, Fred White.
If so desired, donations of remembrance to a charity of choice
would be appreciated by Wilfred’s family.
Immediately following interment prayers at Lakeside Cemetery,
The Pas, Manitoba, everyone is invited to join Wilf’s family
for a luncheon at the Royal Canadian Legion Hall Club Room.
To share a memory or send a condolence gift, please visit the Official Obituary of Wilfred Guymer hosted by Hemauer Funeral Home and Cremation Services.