Robert Nelson Ward (1955 - 2019)

Born 20 May 1955 in Saint John, St. John, New Brunswick, Canada

Ancestors

Died 28 Sep 2019 at age 64 in Saint John, St. John, New Brunswick, Canada

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Biography

In his own words:

A Coast Guard Marine Communications and Traffic Services Officer; stationed at Halifax Coast Guard Radio/VCS November 1983 to November 1996; Halifax M.C.T.S. Center Nov/96 to Oct 97, then to Saint John M.C.T.S. Started in genealogy in October 1994. Life Member of the Seeley Genealogical Society.

Robert Nelson WARD:

I was born in the Saint John General Hospital, Waterloo Street, Saint John, New Brunswick, Canada, on the 20th of May, 1955. At the time our family lived at 44 MacLaren Boulevard in the "Crescent Valley" neighborhood of north-end Saint John, where we lived until 1961. I attended Crescent Valley School for only about three and a half months, December 1961, when we moved to the village of Spruce Lake, in the Parish of Lancaster. My father had bought the old Spruce Lake School, a newer one having been built just about a quarter of a mile down the road a few years earlier. The old school house consisted of one large room with two toilet stalls upstairs, and one large room and a furnace room downstairs. The day after we moved in, there was a howling snow storm which left drifts large enough that we could not see across the road. The property consisted of the house, with semi-circular driveway, and two acres of land, on what was then New Brunswick Highway #1; the main highway running from the Maine/New Brunswick border at Calais/St. Stephen, to Moncton. Years later the Saint John Throughway was put in and the highway through the village of Spruce Lake is now just a suburban (or semi-rural) road. When we moved in there were still blackboards on the walls, and a working drinking fountain just inside the front entry. For the first few weeks, as I recall, the "bedrooms" downstairs were delineated with blankets strung from place to place, until Dad built some real walls. I attended Spruce Lake School for grades 1 through 7, and then transferred to Barnhill Memorial School for my second time through grade 7, and for grades 8 and 9. I didn't complete grade 9, and dropped out in 1970 with no certificate of completion. In January or February of 1971, I got an extremely short-lived job at ten dollars per day at A.O. Pope's die-casting shop on Winter street. It was a horrendous, Dickensian place, and I believe the walls were made from filth, the original wood having gradually been replaced in a type of petrification process. I was allergic to the entire establishment. After leaving Pope's, I worked at the Lancaster Car Wash, pumping Irving gasoline, and occasionally helping out in the car wash itself. After a few months there, I worked for a couple of years at the "Mari Milk Mart" gas bar at 10 Main Street West, in Saint John. In August of 1973 I joined the Canadian Armed Forces, where it was intended that my trade would be Military Police, but I was honorably discharged from the forces in January 1974, after some time in the base hospital at Cornwallis, Nova Scotia, due to a long-standing problem with asthma. I returned to pumping gasoline for a while, then worked on Canterbury Street in Saint John for the wholesale hardware division of Emerson & Fisher. I drove the delivery van and worked in the shipping room. Later I drove the 3-ton delivery truck for Emerson & Fisher's wholesale plumbing division on Marsh Street in Saint John, where my father was the general manager. I also worked in the shipping/receiving warehouse, which was so old that the floor would not support a forklift. Everything had to be loaded and unloaded from trucks and rail cars by hand and with hand carts; nails, bathtubs, pipe, 100-pound bags of cement, 110 pound bags of calcium chloride- everything was done by hand. When Dad was transferred to Moncton in 1976 I was still living at home, and moved there with Mom and Dad. It was a bad time to be unemployed in Moncton, and just before we moved, there were large layoffs at various places. We lived in Moncton from August of 1976 until April of 1978, during which time I managed to find only 2 days employment. On being transferred back to Saint John in 1978, Dad bought a house on the east side, in "Silver Falls Park", then a relatively new subdivision, where my mother still lives (1997). I got a job driving taxi for "Torino All-Points Taxi and Delivery" in May of 1978, and worked from 6 PM to 6 AM. The dispatching office was in a condemned building on the northwest corner of Queen Street and Carmarthen Street in the South End of Saint John. Not the best taxi company in town. After driving taxi for less than a year I was again unemployed. In 1979 the employment office finally gave me some aptitude tests. I entered the Saint John campus of the New Brunswick Community College for academic upgrading, and subsequently in September 1980 entered the Electronic Servicing course at the College. I graduated in June of 1981 and was awarded the Cam-Gard prize for "Best All-Around Student". The next month I got a job as a technician for "Service Coin Limited", which supplied the Saint John area and a good part of southern New Brunswick with pinball machines, video games, juke boxes, and cigarette vending machines. In 1982 I answered an ad for radio operator trainees, and on April 30, 1983 went to the Transport Canada Training Institute in Cornwall, Ontario, and graduated as a Coast Guard Radio Operator in November of that year. I was stationed at what was then Canada's largest and busiest station, Halifax Coast Guard Radio, in the fishing village Ketch Harbour, and worked there until that station was amalgamated with the Vessel Traffic Services Station at Shannon Hill in Dartmouth, November, 1996. The new "Marine Communications and Traffic Services Station" overlooks the Halifax Harbor and part of the city skyline. For seven months in 1993/94 I had an acting assignment at the Coast Guard Regional Headquarters in Dartmouth, where I was seconded to the Telecommunications section, installing computers and software on the Coast Guard's new local-and-wide-area computer network. In 1986 I met Daphne, and we married on April 19, 1993 on the back deck of the house we bought the previous September, at 201 Poplar Drive, Forest Hills, Cole Harbour, Nova Scotia. Unfortunately, my father had died just 3 months before our wedding, and his absence was keenly felt on the day.

From February to May of 1997 I undertook further training at the Canadian Coast Guard College in Sydney, Nova Scotia, and became a "Marine Communications and Traffic Services Officer", expanding my duties from radio operations to include radar coverage of harbor areas and near off-shore waters. In 1997 I was transferred from the MCTS station in Dartmouth to Fundy MCTS at the coast guard base in my home town of Saint John, New Brunswick. My wife and I bought a log home in Kingston, N.B., which is on the Kingston Peninsula between the St. John and Kennebecasis rivers, and which peninsula was settled more than 200 years ago by my Kierstead and Seely ancestors, who were United Empire Loyalists. Our land was surveyed by a Kierstead cousin. I took up genealogy in October of 1994, and started by entering my father's work into "Brother's Keeper", a computer genealogy program. The vast majority of Dad's information was kept on family group sheets, and in his book "The Seelys of New Brunswick", which was published the August (1992) before his death. I use the genealogical numbering system my father developed; "The Hap Hap Ward Genealogical System", which appears to me to be an even-more-modified "Modified Henry System". I feel Dad's system to be slightly superior, and use it exclusively.

Obituary

It is with deepest regrets that we announce the death of Robert N. Ward. Robert was 64 when he died at Bobby’s Hospice from liver cancer on September 28, 2019. He was born May 20, 1955 in Saint John, NB to the late CG (Hap) and Joyce (Johnson) Ward.

He is survived by his wife, Daphne (Dart) Ward; brother, Bruce Ward; sister, Cathryn Ward (Steven Sellors); half-sister, Beryl de Beaupre and her family; step-sons, Michael Needham (Sheri) and their son Jared, and James Needham and his children, Jacob (Serena) Brekelmans and Autumn Brekelmans.

Robert was proud to serve in the Armed Forces. He worked for the Canadian Coast Guard for 33 years and taught two semesters at the Coast Guard college. After retiring, he spent his time daily on genealogy, magnet fishing, and metal detecting.

The family would like to thank all the nurses and doctors who looked after Robert and us on this journey; as well as all the friends who visited him, especially the “true blue” Radcliffe brothers.

Arrangements are under the care of Brenan’s Funeral Home, 111 Paradise Row, Saint John, NB (506-634-7424). By Robert’s request, there will be no visitation or memorial service.

For those who wish, remembrances may be made to the Canadian Cancer Society, Canadian Diabetes Association, or a charity of the donor’s choice. Please place online condolences and remembrances at www.BrenansFH.com.

Sources

• https://obituaries.telegraphjournal.com/book-of-memories/3978524/robert-ward/obituary.php