Donald Day

DONALD BERTRID DAY of Lundbreck passed away after a short illness. Don grew up in Short Grass Country, in the whistle stop of Bowell, on a homestead settled by his parents Stewart and Margaret (Wallace), as the youngest of 3 children; Scotty (Colleen), and Jean (Doug) Powell.

In his early years he attended SAIT and worked in heating and air conditioning. This profession afforded him many adventures and travel opportunities as part of the jet set crowd in the early 70’s. He was a man of many coveted talents and had an engineering brain that could build or fix just about anything, and so he built a couple of homes from the ground up for himself, and many expansive projects for a client list that was so long that he joked he would ‘have to complete in the afterlife’.

He excelled at cards, crib, billards and crosswords, and the entire family spent their lives trying, in vain, to beat him in a game of Scrabble. Don had a close group of fishing buddies that would go on derbies and fun house-boating weeks on the Shuswap. No one knows what really happened on these trips, but there was a real sense of ‘boys will be boys’ and we will leave it at that. Curling was a passion and he curled for many years, until his knees refused to do it. He then switched to painting watercolours and produced many excellent paintings of his southern Alberta surroundings.

The prairies were his home, he spent most of his life living in Calgary, and often took drives to be away from people and telephone poles. On more than one occasion, his car would leave the road to chase antelope across the wide expanse of scrubby grass. Nature was his passion and camping involved the bush and no other humans for miles.

Don loved to laugh, had a short tolerance for those lacking common sense and a solid sense of self. He had an unflinching commitment to lending a hand to those in need and often saved the day for people, behind the scenes, to no fanfare. In his later years, he often professed that he had been born at the luckiest time in history and had a great life. He lived out his retirement years in Lundbreck, watching birds, hanging out at the Seniors Centre and painting; keen to take it easy after decades of industry.

He leaves to mourn, his nieces Carla Powell, Karen Lee and nephew Kevin Day, as well as his closest cousin Beau (Clara Jane) Wallace.Numerous cousins, in-laws, friends and neighbours, too many to mention, will certainly notice the loss of his steady presence. He was loved, and he will be missed.

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