The Reverend Donald Hanley wasn’t yet a minister at the time I came along. He didn’t become a Reverend until his graduation from Knox College at the age of 43.

Prior to that he was just a regular man and he was my dad.

To give a little history, when he married my mom in 1952 he was working for a company called Hamilton Cotton. He took some courses in business management and moved on to work for my uncles small printing business as manager in the early 60s and was instrumental in building the business from a small operation to a much larger one.

I remember as a kid being so impressed when his company began printing tickets and programs for professional sports leagues such as the CFL.

I also had my first paying job at the age of 13 or 14 as the head grass-cutter and washroom cleaner at the big new John Kerr and Son printing plant that was built in Galt in the mid sixties.

I was also old enough to be the chief grass cutter and fence painter for my grandmother who lived alone at the time in the house that Dad grew up in. She loved nothing better than to recall stories from her youth and from Dads childhood. She would sit at the table with an ever-present cigarette and cloud of smoke and tell me of Dads heroics on the field of the collegiate football field. Dad was a small guy but very fast on his feet and he played halfback for the Galt Collegiate team. Grandma had all the old news clippings and trophies to show me and she was so proud.

Dad continued to be interested in sports both as a player, an observer and a coach. Each winter he worked hard at building a rink in the backyard so we could learn to skate and play hockey. Unpredictable weather would often have him out there rebuilding the rink. Hockey night in Canada every Saturday, watching the Leafs when they were actually contenders. He took me to a few games at Maple Leaf Gardens to watch the likes of Johnny Bower, Eddy Shack and Bobby Hull play. He also coached our squirt level softball team in the sixties.

He remained active, even as he reached retirement age and into his eighties, at the YMCA, playing basketball, murder ball and swimming and just exercising.

My sister Jane was reminding me of how cheap he could be. He preferred the term frugal, and i suppose it was his depression upbringing that caused him to be always tight with a buck.For example, he would never buy anything if it could be borrowed and he wouldn't replace anything until it was absolutely beyond redemption. As chief grass cutter I had to use one of those mechanical push mowers without an engine until it finally fell to bits on the lawn, then we would borrow one from a neighbour for weeks until he could find a cheap or free used mower that still worked. I remember being a little embarrassed many weeks going to pick up the neighbours shiny new power mower.

Or another time when the new African Lion Safari opened not far from town and we all wanted to go. He resisted for a long time because he didn’t want to pay the admission price. He finally relented and we all loaded in the car, but as we were approaching the gates along the road, Dad looked over and could see some animals in the field through the fence, giraffes and zebras and such. Bingo! We pulled over to look at the animals right there through the fence. Right beside the sign that said “Trespassers will be eaten”. We never did pay the admission because we could see the show from the cheap seats.

As a kid I was fanatic about fishing but my dad was not. But after I would bug him often enough he would take me out to a fishing hole that he knew of that used to have trout in when he was  a kid so I would stop bugging him for awhile. He would bring his antique fishing rod but would seldom use it and would sit with his back to a tree and read a book and swat mosquitos for the afternoon. But a favourite memory was of him taking me camping, just me and him. I think he hated the camping thing but he knew I loved it so for several summers we would head to a provincial park for a weekend of hiking, fishing, swatting bugs, eating badly cooked food and being together.

Dad really loved music and he was leader of our church youth group in Galt before we moved to Beaverton. We both played guitar, I was learning anyway, and there was some outstanding musical talent among our group, so we put on a few musical productions for the church. Just to give you and idea of how good we were, a couple of the members were good enough on piano, keyboard and guitar to go on to professional recording careers, and we also had some great singers.

Dad was not one of the great singers, he couldn’t hold a tune in a bucket with his voice, and me either, but I knew enough to sing quietly but he couldn’t help himself and would sing at the top of his lungs with every song. He was so off-key that we quickly learned to unplug his microphone without him knowing so it didn’t throw off everyone else.

He continued to love music throughout his life and even took piano lessons in his sixties and seventies and more guitar lessons in his eighties. He still loved to sing which was a pleasure to him if no one else.

He loved my mom without reservation. They moved to Owen Sound mostly because mom loved the trees and hills and water of the landscape there that contrasted so much with the flatness of Windsor. She was an artist who loved the outdoors and when her health got worse and she became bedridden, dad had a landscape company build a small pond with a falls and fish and trees and rocks around it and put up bird-feeders all just outside the window so mom could sit and watch it.

When she passed away 5 years ago, he was devastated and as he grieved, he also realized that he wasn’t as closely connected to my sister and I as he would like so he began to reach out to fix that. He moved to Orillia 2 years ago to be closer and as his own health began to fail we began to reconnect and it was good for us all.

Dad was one of 2 ministers at the Lakeshore St. Andrews Presbyterian Church in Belle River near Windsor up until his retirement in 1995. Reverend Brad Watson is the current minister of that church and I met him several years ago and spoke to him recently. He described my Dad as a mentor to him when he first got there, before Dads retirement.

He sent me the following note…

Your dad was a  much loved pastor here at Lakeshore St. Andrews. His heart was always aflame for Jesus and His people and with a holy discontent to know Him better.  He was always pushing himself, always reading and studying, alway growing.  His heart's desire in one of his last emails to me was to serve Jesus up til his dying day...he really believed that "if you weren't dead, you weren't done!"

In fact, he was 70 or so when I asked him to travel with me to Willow Creek Community Church outside of Chicago for a conference, he was reluctant at first - had been retired for some time, wasn't sure about leaving Barb...but I challenged him with a well known Jesus -phrase and one of his favourite books - it was a part of the stack of books he kept beside his bed, I said to him, Don if you want to walk on the water with Jesus you have to get outta the boat. And he did, and to my surprise (though I shouldn't  have been) he continued to get out of the boat!  His move to Owen Sound, and then to Orillia after Barb's death, even when we saw him last August - amidst his cancer treatment he continued to get out of the boat, even thinking about moving and re-joining us down at Lakeshore St. Andrews.  

As people get older, their worlds seem to get smaller, but not so with Don. I loved Don's laugh, it would just erupt and invite you to laugh with him.  I'm so glad Jesus invited Don to walk with Him, to get out of the boat and continue to walk on water...til the day Don walked into the presence of His Saviour and King.  I hope I can be half the pastor, half the follower, half the man Don was to me, to us.  

With heartfelt gratitude and common grief,                                                                                                     Brad & Netty Watson

Dad had a very clear purpose in his life…To serve God and to try to make a difference in the lives of the people he would meet along the way. He was an organizer, a manager of projects and people, a counsellor and a mentor, a worker and a preacher. He loved to read and was well educated, he constantly pushed himself to learn more. He was someone who loved to pitch in and help with whatever was happening, from a new church to an addition on my own house. He would always be asking about his grandkids and their babies, he would email them and correspond about their lives and his and wanted  to see them as much as possible. 

Though he never would have stopped doing all of those things, I think he achieved his purpose in life with style.

He was my Dad and he will be missed.