CANTWELL Michael John Dennis
22 June 1936 - 18 April 2013
He worked and played hard and he died the same way. Mike lost his fight with cancer after a long and difficult struggle and now he’s residing in Fiddler’s Green. Mike was born in St. John’s, Newfoundland to William Cantwell
and Mary Murphy, one of seven
children. He is survived and sorely
missed by his loving wife of 48 years, Catherine; his daughters, Catherine Murphy (Craig), Lisa Braun (Scott),
and Michelle Pratt (Michael); the lights of his life, his grandsons, Lucas Gray, Elliott Braun, Jackson, Samuel and Maxwell Pratt; and family and friends stretching from the
Avalon Peninsula to Vancouver Island and all points in between. Mike’s work as a surveyor, then engineer, brought
him across the country from St. John’s to Wabush, then Amherst, Montreal, Winnipeg, Vancouver, Hyder, Revelstoke, and finally to Abbotsford in 1969. He worked on projects as varied as the Mica Dam, the Port Mann and Mission Bridges, the Richmond dyke system, the Skytrain system, the Toronto Skydome, and the Rideau Locks project to name but a few. In retirement, he could be
found in his paint-stained two-pocket shirt working in his garage building boxes for the Abbotsford News. Mike’s passions were many. He loved music: playing both the harmonica and the button accordion. He was an avid hunter and fisherman. He was a nature lover and
spent many a week-end camping throughout B.C. Mike was a gambler and a master blackjack player who loved
to spend time at the tables in Reno and Las Vegas. He faithfully followed the rise and fall of the stock markets.
He was passionate about politics on al levels and would debate the issues of the day with great vigour. Mike was
a champion dart player and a whiz with numbers: “102: hit 19, triple 17 then double 16.” He was a handyman
extraordinaire able to build and/or repair all manner of things. He was an adventurous traveller, taking many
a road trip throughout Canada and the United States. Yet he liked nothing better than to sit on his front step
enjoying the sunshine. Mike loved to tell stories and he would argue just for argument’s sake. He had a wicked
sense of humour and a healthy skepticism for organized religion.
No service by request. Mike’s wife and daughters will honour him at Cape Spear, the site of his family’s
lighthouse. You are welcome to join us for an old fashioned Newfie wake at the Cantwell residence on Saturday 27 April from 7 pm on. In lieu of flowers,
donations can be made to the BC Neurofibromatosis Foundation in Mike’s memory. Many thanks and much appreciation to the excellent staff
at the Abbotsford Regional Hospital, Cancer Centre and the Tertiary Palliative Care ward for their professionalism and dedicated service.
And you, my father, there on that sad height, Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray. Do not go gentle into that good night. Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Dylan Thomas
“Long may your big jib draw!”