Roderick Steele

Roderick D. Steele

July 22, 1935 – January 8, 2017

Well another member of the ANT (Absolutely No Tattoos) generation has slipped away. I started life as the oldest son a coal miner and housewife in Glace Bay, NS at the height of the Great Depression. My father was on relief (welfare) after being laid off from the mine and worked one day a week for the town digging ditches or whatever. I believe his pay was about a dollar and a half. Living with my grandmother kept a roof over our heads. I remember a lot from those early years - moving a kerosene lamp from room to room because it was cheaper than moving the single light bulb about. I remember my dad following the coal cars to pick up the coal pieces that fell from the cars, putting them in a grain bag and dragging them home to use for cooking and a bit of heat. I remember riding in my uncle Dan's Model A rumble seat and the family gathering around the rare radio use to hear the declaration of World War 2 although I didn't understand it.

Early September 1940 saw my dad walk me the mile to school for the only time ever to start school. There were no busses then except if you lived in the rural area. You had to walk home for lunch unless you were a bus student and then were allowed to eat at your desk, there were no cafeterias.  High school years saw students funneled in one of two schools - the Catholic or the Protestant and there was bus service because of the distance. The cost was five cents each way and you could have your lunch at your desk, being an enterprising student I pocketed the dime and would walk home for lunch as well as to and from school.

Homemade bread and molasses with tea and evaporated milk was a daily standard, often for breakfast and lunch as well. Supper was mainly fish. Usually the cheaper and bonier types like herring and turbot. A big treat would be fresh cod or once or twice a year halibut. Coal miners kids wore pretty much the same attire. Whatever it was usually had a discreet patch or two - the kind of jeans etc. they pay big bucks for to have the modern distressed look or they don't want to go to school and be embarrassed by the new look.

At the height of the Cold War I entered the Air Force and trained as Communications Technician. My training included radio and radar and I worked at both in the early years when they couldn't train radar techs fast enough. When they caught up I went back to the radio end. Over my career I spent about three years in courses of all types from Radiation Safety to Seismology. Most of my service was in Canada except for about a year in USA and the Republic of the Congo or as it was called then the Belgian Congo. A civil war erupted when independence was gained. I was part of a team to install a radio station to fulfil Canada's duty to provide airlift for the United Nations as our part to bring peace.

I met the light of my life, Joan, while based at a radar station in Sydney NS. She worked across the hall at the switchboard while I was working as in radar maintenance. We married and began to see Canada a bit at a time as we were posted every two years or so. I served across Canada from NS to BC and places like Churchill, Whitehorse and Flin Flon with a final stop in Portage where I retired to go to work with Phillips Cables. When interest rates rose to over twenty percent in the early eighties cable sales went down the drain and the company got rid of 34 managers across the country in one day - I was one of them I went back to school to become a power engineer and found work with the local hospital until I retired in 1995.  Affiliations over the years included the Portage Flying Club, the Lions Club and Citizens on Patrol Program (COPP).

In 1976 1 fulfilled a dream by learning to fly and acquired my own four seat plane but rheumatoid arthritis came along and by 1984 was going to take my pilot license so I had to sell my plane and quit flying.

Besides my parents and mother and father-in-law I was predeceased by my brother Joe; daughter Jennifer and foster daughter Margaret Pritchett. I am survived by my wife Joan; daughter Heather Mulvey (Terry), daughter Beth Doherty (Allan), son Charles (Janet), foster daughter Marie Natomagan; brother Don; some fifteen grandchildren and thirteen great grandchildren. Also surviving are a sister-in-law and a brother-in-law, and a number of nieces and a nephew.

A Come & Go Celebration of Rod’s life will be held from 1:00 – 3:00 p.m. on Wednesday, January 11, 2017 at McKenzies Portage Funeral Chapel, beginning with sharing of memories by Rod’s grandchildren.

Friends wishing to make a donation may do so to Sunset Palliative Care, Box 92 Portage la Prairie, MB R1N 3B2 or to a charity of your choice.

A tree will be planted in memory and cared for by McKenzies Portage Funeral Chapel 204-857-4021 www.mckenziesportagefuneralchapel.com