Businessman, athlete.
Born at Brandon on 15 August 1930, son of Gertrude Ruth Darrach (1896-1996) and James Elrick Rettie (1887-1948), he moved to Winnipeg with his family in 1939. He graduated from Norwood Collegiate and went on to attain his chartered accounting designation from the University of Manitoba, having articled at the firm of Miller-Macdonald. On 12 October 1957, he married Joan Lawrie Kergan (1933-2019) at Winnipeg, and they went on to have five children. His business career began at Western Savings and Loan Association, and upon his retirement in June 1988, he was holding the position of senior vice-president of finance and treasury at Investors Group Incorporated.
He enjoyed baseball in his youth. As a pitcher, he was nicknamed “Pistol Pete” and played with the Rosedales in the late 1940s and the St. Boniface Native Sons in the early 1950s. In 1953, he pitched a no-hitter for the Winnipeg Goldeyes, and was inducted into the Manitoba Baseball Hall of Fame in 1997. His volunteer activities included Winnipeg Harvest, Cancer Foundation, Baseball Hall of Fame, United Way, and coaching youth baseball teams. In 2014, his baseball career was honoured posthumously by a donation to the University of Winnipeg Wesmen Baseball program made by his widow and children. It allowed for the purchase of baseball equipment and two retractable batting cages located inside the United Health & RecPlex.
He died at Winnipeg on 30 April 2004.
“Fair manager, J. E. Rettie dies,” Winnipeg Free Press, 2 November 1948, page 4.
Obituary, Winnipeg Free Press, 3 May 2004.
“Rettie legacy lives on inside United Health and Recplex,” University of Winnipeg News, 27 May 2014.
Obituary [Joan Lawrie Rettie (Kergan)], Winnipeg Free Press, 24 July 2019.
Donald Elrick Rettie, Rettie-60, Wikitree.
This page was prepared by Lois Braun.
Page revised: 9 January 2021
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