by CONNIE TABBERT
Editor
WHITEWATER REGION — Each person who remembers Izett McBride will smile, just as he was always smiling.
Mr. McBride, a community-minded volunteer, died in his sleep at Caressant Care Nursing Home in Cobden on Thursday March 14. He was 78 years old.
He was well-known throughout the area as he lived in the Whitewater Region throughout his life. He grew up a farm on Pleasant Valley Road near Westmeath. He followed in his father’s footsteps and became a farmer, but added municipal politician, farm implement dealer and real estate broker, a career that spanned 35 years.
“He had an awesome life,” son Hugh said. “Dad was always busy. He was extremely motivated to help out in his community.”
And there are accolades to prove that, as he was named Volunteer of the Year in 2011 by the Westmeath District Recreation Association and was presented with the Lifetime Achievement Award, with his wife Gail Richardson, in 2015 from the Upper Ottawa Valley Chamber of Commerce.
“He was a great listener,” he recalled. “He was good at gleaning ideas from different people and then coming up with a solution.
“He always ended up in the leadership position.”
Looking back to his childhood, Hugh recalled a dairy farmer who became a farm implement dealer and municipal politician.
When his dad began selling Arctic Cat snowmobiles, he and his brother Kirby and sister Heidi had visions of driving brand new snowmobiles.
“We drove the old trade-ins,” he recalled with a laugh, “That was good, because it was a good way of learning how to become a mechanic.”
When he was eight years old, Hugh, the oldest of the siblings, learned how to drive, because dad needed help on the farm.
“It was awesome,” he recalled. “He taught me a lot. Growing up on a farm is very educational and is confidence building.”
The farm was eventually sold to a relative and Izett and the family moved to a 200-acre hobby farm and the farm implement dealership was born.
In 1973, Mr. McBride entered the real estate business, having travelled to Ottawa with Drew Scott and Tony Donnelly where they were all taking their courses. That was a career that spanned 35 years.
In 2011, Mr. McBride was described as a community pillar and optimist when he was presented with the Volunteer of the Year Award from the Westmeath District Recreation Association (WDRA).
“Izett has a deeply ingrained sense that service to others is the highest calling one can have,” wrote his sister Gayle Stewart in a profile piece for the volunteer award. “It would be difficult to find someone in our community over the age of 50 who has not been on a volunteer committee with him of some sort, or been asked or influenced by him to contribute in some way. He has in his quiet way always maintained that anything can be accomplished if you just band together and get on with it.”
Mr. McBride was an original founder of the WDRA and with Edgar White and the late Bob Bromley, campaigned with so many others to find financing and then supervised the construction to see the recreation centre building rise not once, but twice. It was first erected in 1973 and 1974 followed by the installation of artificial ice in 1975 and a new lighted ball park in 1976. Following a fire in 1983, the building was extended to make a better hall and a dressing room area as well as adding handicapped access.
Izett’s first marriage ended in a break-up and he then married Gail Richardson, growing the family to add two more sons, Russell and Trevor.
When they retired, the McBride’s enjoyed gardening, driving his tractor, pontoon boat rides and trips to visit their children and 11 grandchildren.
In 2005, Mr. McBride’s Parkinson’s disease became very obvious following heart surgery, said Hugh.
“It had been slowly progressing, but the last five years it was much worse.
“Parkinson’s is a brutal thing.
“Dad was sad he could not be involved in the community like he always had been.”
But even with the Parkinson’s diagnosis, his father continued to dream.
“He wanted to restart train passenger service in the area,” Hugh recalled. “He really wanted that to work. People want to live in the valley but work in Ottawa. What could be better then travelling by train to Ottawa?”
When he was 76 years old, he and Gail moved into Heritage Manor in Pembroke and a year later, he moved to Caressant Care Nursing Home in Cobden and when a room opened, his wife Gail joined him.
Even though they could not be in same room, Hugh said they visited each other every day.
Mr. McBride is survived by wife Gail, children Hugh, Kirby and Heidi and stepsons Russell Newall and Trevor Newall, 11 grandchildren and siblings Arthur, Shirley, Murray and Gayle.
