ALAN SWEATMAN

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ALAN SWEATMAN December 9, 1920 April 10, 2012 Alan Sweatman died peacefully at his home on Tuesday, April 10 2012, at the age of 91. He is survived and will be greatly missed by his wife Lorraine and his six children, fifteen grandchildren and four great-grandchildren (with one more on the way). Alan is mourned by his son Alan Travers (Tari Jones) and Al's sons David and Iain (Mykahl Summers); Wynn and Teddi and their sons and daughters, Tom (Wendy and their son Donovan), Megan Sweatman (Jeff Holliday and their sons Luke and Jace), Mark (Lea Kovach) and Victoria (Cliff Rediger); son Paul (Catherine Moss) and Paul's children Beau, Conrad and Sophia; daughter Margaret (Glenn Buhr) and her daughters Bailey Harris (Rob Evenson and their son Asher Harris Evenson) and Hillery Taylor (Graham Taylor); daughter Elizabeth and her daughter Mikale; and son Scott (Linda Ostry and their children Farley, Julia and Sascha), as well as numerous nieces and nephews. This past year, June 2011, Alan Sweatman lost a beloved granddaughter, Sheilah (twenty-nine year old daughter of Wynn and Teddi Sweatman), in a Search and Rescue mission in British Columbia. Sheilah had always insisted on a ritual lunch of soup and a sandwich with her grandfather at the cafeteria in the Grain Exchange Building. Alan Sweatman was truly a grand grandfather. And he respected those of us who ventured past his generous yet discerning and selective intellect. Alan Sweatman is also predeceased by his brother Fraser Sweatman (Margaret) and sisters Janet and Francis, his brother-in-law Victor Tryon (of Toronto), and by Lorraine's brothers and sisters. He had an affectionate, astute understanding of every one of us individually, despite our numbers and our diverse interests. Alan Sweatman, the son of Travers and Constance Sweatman, was born in Winnipeg on December 9, 1920, in the house that Alan would return to and buy in 1958, as a hard-working lawyer with six children. He was a student at the University of Manitoba in 1942 when he enlisted with the navy, and quickly became a Navigator and a Lieutenant. His father Travers, also a lawyer, died while Alan was in the navy, a loss that Alan always honoured. He and Lorraine MacDonald married in 1943. When the war ended, Alan studied law at the University of Manitoba and practiced in the early years of his career with Pitblado Hoskin, having articled to Isaac Pitblado, and then after some years with Thompson, Dewar, Sweatman, a firm that would later become Thompson Dorfman Sweatman where he was for many years chair of the partners. Alan had a creative and highly principled approach to law. He was a Q.C. (since 1962), and was former president and Life Bencher of the Law Society of Manitoba. He served on many boards, some of them personal, such as the redevelopment committee of the Convalescent Home of Winnipeg where his mother Constance had received palliative care, and others of international complexity, such as those of Greyhound Lines, Hudson Bay Mining and Smelting, and The Toronto-Dominion Bank. He was a chairman of the Canadian Council of Christians and Jews, and a chairman (by default) of the Committee to Save the Jets. Alan was a brilliant writer and speaker, a generous mentor for younger lawyers, a rational mediator who was imaginative, honest, literate and witty in solving problems. Two Manitoba based businesses, important to Alan, were Blackwoods Beverages Ltd and Inter-City Gas Corporation. Alan advised Inter-City Gas Corporation (later acquired by Manitoba Hydro) both as a lawyer and as a director, from the time of its start-up, providing natural gas to communities in Manitoba, through its development as a national business with operations across much of Canada. Alan was the long-time lawyer and advisor to Gerry Gray, the owner of Blackwoods, who had started with a bottling business in Manitoba, and who would then expand into Ontario, Saskatchewan and Alberta. Blackwoods was acquired by Pepsi Cola Canada Ltd. Alan Sweatman tried to live a balanced life. He had a great talent for living. He loved music and was a wonderful dancer. He loved golf, understood the game and played it very well, and was a longstanding member of the St. Charles Country Club, serving as president for three years, from 1965-1967. It is told by the many who loved him that in golf he shot his age: an 82 at 82. He spent his boyhood summers at his family's cottage at Lake of the Woods, and he returned to the lake as a very young man, eventually to navigate the lake with his own family aboard a couple of unreliable cabin cruisers and then with a lovely thirty-foot sailboat that never failed. He and Lorraine adventured to sail the Adriatic and the Caribbean; they skied the Rockies and the Alps; they came to know Italian opera in Rome. In 1977, they bought a cottage at Lake of the Woods, where the family congregated, and where lifelong friendships developed between their grandchildren. His family will remain ever grateful for his sense of adventure, his generous, even glamorous tastes, and his love for interesting hard work. A voracious reader with a curious intellect, Alan Sweatman had razor wit, an independent mind, an astounding memory, courageous integrity, and an abiding love for his wife, Lorraine. A funeral service will be held at Westminster United Church, 745 Westminster Ave., on Monday, April 16, at 1:00 p.m. Those wishing to honour his memory can make a donation to The Sheilah Sweatman Memorial Fund c/o Fort Whyte Alive, or to the Westminster Church Foundation. Salon Mortuaire Desjardins Funeral Chapel 233-4949 Toll free 1-888-233-4949 Condolences may be sent to www.desjardinsfuneralchapel.ca

As published in Winnipeg Free Press on Apr 13, 2012