A Tribute to My Dad

My dad passed away last Sunday evening at the age of 95 years old. My dad and I were close and he led a full life. I learned a lot from my dad! I am going to miss him.

Thanks for all the notes in the last two weeks. They all have meant a lot to me! 

Douglas Kendall Vanderwater was born on November 10, 1929; the only child of Harold and Anna Vanderwater.

Doug lived much of his childhood on Ridley Street with his beloved dog, Mickey. As a boy, he attended King George School and Belleville Collegiate.

Doug, later, went off to Ryerson Polytechnical School. Dad studied electrical engineering! His dad gave him $200 which paid for half his tuition and he received grants for the other half. After graduating, Doug worked for National Defense.

At this time he met our mom, Lucia. She was a bookkeeper in the Toronto area. It wasn’t long before they married and had their first child, a daughter whom they named Margaret. Doug did not have a car back in 1953, so they went to the hospital on a subway.

Later, Doug moved his family to Belleville, and worked in Trenton at Essex, manufacturing transformers for TVs. Doug was in charge of one of the production plants. He was very proud of his workers and the production of tv parts.

When Essex folded, Doug began working for Stuart Warner, a company that manufactured TVs. At the same time he also worked for Nortel repairing Hammond organs.

 Robert and Charles came along shortly after and Doug finally had three teddy bears.

Doug moved his family started living on John Street. There the landlady was grateful he was there to help her shovel coal and add wood to the furnace. Soon Doug bought a house on Moria Street. Once that house became too small,  we all moved to 53 Catharine Street. This is where the children spent their formative years. All three children then headed off to Queens’ University. 

For many years Doug took care of two apartment buildings, one on Holloway Street and another on Wallbridge Road. Doug had to deal with a variety of personalities, from reverends to bikers. He often took his son along as a back up. Luckily,  events usually ended peacefully. 

A few years later Doug got a job working for Booths and Circle TV, repairing TVs. He also continued to repair Hammond organs on the side. Doug also started to do part time work for Quinte Broadcasting. He did live broadcasts of Sunday morning church services in the Belleville-Trenton area. In addition, he did remote broadcasts. His son, Bob, helped with the Country Jamboree shows that were broadcast live from the Sterling Theatre. They always got home late, but still had to get ready for the Sunday morning church broadcast somewhere in either Belleville or Trenton.

The family would often pull the 18 foot Rambler trailer to Cedardale Beach and camp along the shore of Lake Ontario. Doug would commute to and from the lake so his family could enjoy the beach in the summer.

Doug always juggled 3 or  4 jobs to provide for his family.

Quinte Broadcasting quickly realized that Doug could fix absolutely anything at CJBQ Radio. Doug soon was hired full time when Bucky Buchanan became sick and they needed a broadcast engineer to help them pass a Proof of Performance with the CRTC. Doug was a wizard at fixing circuits of all sorts and trouble shooting anything electrical. Micro wave systems, computerizing Quinte Broadcasting, Doug did it all. He would even help with commercial production.

Doug would travel at breakneck speeds to Hillier to fix the AM transmitter if it went off of the air. Doug would often do maintenance work on Sunday evening in the middle of the night in Bancroft, Keller Bridge or Hillier. One night Doug and his son Bob were heading to the FM transmitter and they stopped in Foxboro at a fast food place for a treat. When Doug backed out he hit a light standard with the CJBQ van. You see Doug had a big blind spot because he only had the use of one eye because of a childhood accident. Bob laughed and Doug was fuming . Another time the radio station went off of the air and Doug grabbed his son’s 10 speed bicycle to race to CJBQ. Trouble was, it had no breaks. It was raining and he went flying down the Catharine Street hill. There was carnage at the bottom of the hill just by Canon Wright’s house but that did not stop Doug from getting CJBQ back on the air quickly. For many years, Doug walked to work. On payday, he often stopped at the bakery by the footbridge and bought chocolate eclairs or cream puffs.

Doug designed the new and improved upgraded Quinte Broadcasting. That included the transmitters and computer programs for the antenna arrays for both AM and FM as well as satellite stations in Trenton and Bancroft. Doug wrote all of the computer programs himself. Some are still being used today. His remote broadcasts included Expo 67 from Montreal and Bobby Hull’s 50th goal called by Jack Devine. 

Doug won a lifetime achievement award for his work from the Canadian Professional Broadcast Engineers. Even after his retirement from Quinte Broadcasting, Doug would often get called back to solve a computer, microwave or transmitter problem. 

Doug built his own radios at a very young age. His mom said he was very excited to hear the Lone Ranger on a radio he had built. Doug also built HAM radios. He loved 10 metre HAM radio. Often he used Morse  code to talk to ships out on the ocean.He loved it! He tried to teach Morse code to his sons but  that was a complete failure.

Doug met Helen and they got married May 21, 1983. Helen was the love of his life. She, too, was a dancing aficionado.They moved into a home on Grosvenor Drive where they lived for almost 40 years. Their passion was ballroom dancing. Doug collected almost 8000 pieces of ballroom music so he could play programs for any sort of occasion. He provided and played music all through the Kingston-Belleville area. Doug became an expert ballroom dancer in retirement and ultimately taught a class of dancers. He was the DJ of choice for many dancing clubs, especially at New Year’s Eve. 

Doug and Helen loved to travel by cruise ship and spent time on the ship dancing or comparing notes with the on board production engineers. They learned more from him than he did from them. He and Helen would dance the night away. 

Doug and Helen were fans of a collection of tv programs; Dancing with the Stars, Blue Bloods,and The Love Boat. Doug also collected and watched his favourite movie hero,  James Bond! 

Many weekends were spent visiting Sharon, his stepdaughter, and her husband, Paul, in Toronto, both very dear to him. Sharon and Paul ultimately retired from professional careers and returned to Belleville to provide support in Doug and Helen’s later lives. Sharon and Paul devoted many years of loving care as they contributed to  the well being of both Doug and Helen. 

Doug and Helen moved to Quinte Gardens as he approached his 90th birthday. He loved all the activities. He especially loved to play music for the train room, coffee house or help plan and organize a dance demonstration. He always wanted to be busy. He loved using computers. No one could successfully enter any of his favourite websites or accounts. He had randomly created 26 digit alpha numeric passwords to each of his accounts. He took cybersecurity seriously decades before we knew the meaning of the word.

Doug loved to spend time with the “online support” for Cogeco Cable. He was convinced that the servers at Quinte Gardens were at fault and he convinced Cogeco technicians to visit and investigate this multiple times. All went well ,when, it turns out that he had to select “ cable” on the remote.

Doug thought his driving skills were much better than they were….he finally let his licence go after rearending a hearse , and hitting a post at the assisted living centre!  Nobody died! He was way ahead of his time when he drove a hybrid vehicle before that was “ a thing “.

Doug was very proud of his three kids, 10 grandchildren and  13 great grandchildren.He  was a very faithful husband and was not afraid of working many jobs to keep ahead. He was a gentleman to the end.