Humanitarian.
Born at Winnipeg on 30 November 1917, he began providing worldwide immigration and poverty relief with the Canada Colonization Association in 1938. From 1943 to 1946, he served with the Royal Canadian Air Force, for which he received the Canadian Volunteer Service Medal and Clasp.
In 1946, he began working with Canadian Lutheran World Relief. Named Executive Director in 1960, he retired in 1988 after 42 years of service. That year, he was asked to join the Immigration and Refugee Board with the Federal Government in Toronto, and he relocated to Pickering, Ontario. He took his second retirement in 1992.
He was awarded the Cross of the Order of Merit from the Federal Republic of Germany in 1983; named a Member of the Order of Canada in 1988; and received the Queen Elizabeth II Golden Jubilee Medal in 2002, all for his global humanitarian achievements. With his wife Elise Barbara Schmidt (1917-2009), whom he married in 1940, he had three children.
He died at Pickering, Ontario on 19 April 2005 and was buried in the Glendale Memorial Gardens.
Obituary, Winnipeg Free Press, 30 April 2005.
This page was prepared by Lois Braun.
Page revised: 22 January 2022
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