Frugal ... but generous with his heart
Wilfred Reck of Waterloo Born: Nov. 29, 1924, in Kitchener Died: Sept. 23, 2018, of age-related illness
KITCHENER — Wilf Reck always wanted to own a Jaguar car, but it was an indulgence he would never allow himself.
Wilf was about practicality, about never being in debt, never being frivolous about spending money — not even on a pizza or Chinese takeout even though he thoroughly enjoyed both.
And it’s not that he and his wife, Nora, were poor.
Nora worked as a library assistant at Wilfrid Laurier University and Wilf had a three-decade career with Economical Insurance.
They paid cash for everything and even their house was furnished largely with items picked up curbside and refinished. The couple were frugal but not stingy, particularly when it came to helping others.
“They just never spent money on themselves,” said Laura Kelly, a longtime friend who along with her husband, James Kelly, and their extended family, considered the childless couple unofficial but deeply-loved grandparents.
Laura talked about a beautiful bed Nora once picked up for one cent because it was stored in a chicken coop and covered in chicken excrement.
Nora simply cleaned it and refinished the wood.
People were much more important and interesting to the couple than a house full of expensive furniture.
Their sense of design was, let’s say, eclectic and based on function not appearance.
Wilf was born Nov. 29, 1924, in Kitchener, an only child to a stay-at-home mom and a dad who worked as a thread counter at Arrow Shirts.
His father’s job entailed hovering directly over shirts with a thread-counting microscope, an eye piece he had to peer through to see the intricate weave.
Wilf kept all his father’s equipment from Arrow, adding to what became a huge collection of all sorts of interesting and sometimes puzzling antiques.
Laura said that when they would visit, Wilf and Nora would tell their kids to rifle through drawers and find a weird object, then bring it to the table for a discussion about what it could have been used for.
“We never got it right,” she said, adding: “They were an interesting couple, they were always learning new things.”
Wilf had served overseas during the war but didn’t see action. His job was primarily helping in Italy with post-conflict cleanup. He then completed a business studies program through the Canadian military, which also helped find his first job in insurance at a Stratford company.
Nora had become a deaconess in the United Church in the 1940s, then in the 1950s she went to Europe where she aided postwar refugees. Returning to Canada, she completed an undergraduate degree, became a personal assistant to a Grand River Hospital administrator, then was hired as a library assistant at Wilfrid Laurier University.
Wilf left the Stratford job to work for Economical Insurance in Waterloo and, in 1969, he was appointed data processing director, charged with introducing IBM computers to this new department.
They met when both were renting rooms in a former Waterloo mansion.
They married in 1960. Wilf was 34 and Nora was 40. The couple purchased their first home in Canning, a tiny hamlet in Oxford County formerly known as Mudge Hollow.
Wilf kept the receipt for their down payment: $10 — and that’s about all the house was worth given its condition.
But the couple stayed, fixed it up, then moved to Ayr, across from James’ parents.
It was one Christmas holiday when James’ mother was looking to borrow a cooking item and noticed the only lights on in her neighbourhood were in the house across the street, Wilf and Nora’s.
Laura said her mom-in-law, seeing they were alone, invited the couple for Christmas dinner and so began a lifelong friendship — the couple would be invited to all family functions. The relationship remained strong after Wilf and Nora moved to Waterloo.
Nora took time off from work to care for elderly parents and when she returned, it was only part time, though she never gave up her deep connection to books.
Laura said Nora had stacks of books, on all subjects, from literary tomes to books about lambing season in Scotland. This is what made visiting the couple so interesting, topics were wideranging and always unexpected.
“If you’d go visit them you didn’t know if you’d be talking about the olden days or same-sex marriage,” she said. “Six hours would go by and I had just stopped in for coffee.”
As Wilf got older, James would have conversations with him, asking if he had regrets.
“He said ‘We should have travelled more,’” she recalls.
And of course, there was that yearning for a totally impractical Jaguar. James even offered to take him Jag shopping, but Wilf made the decision to purchase the more sensible Volkswagen.
But he did allow himself one big indulgence: Flying lessons, though he was 80 at the time and had a pacemaker so he would never be allowed to fly solo.
Though always frugal, the couple did have dinner out once or sometimes twice a year, and they travelled every year or so to Britain, Nora’s homeland and a place they both loved.
At 60, Wilf retired from insurance and put his energies into volunteering at Grand River Hospital and later the regional cancer centre, working several mornings a week at the information desk, a job he did for 32 years.
He even helped train new volunteers and was particularly fond of the university students, appreciating their youth and energy.
Laura said that many of them kept in touch with Wilf for years afterward. Nora was also an active volunteer.
The couple stayed in their own home and remained engaged in their community right up until the end. Nora, had a stroke five weeks before her death on July 9.
Laura remembers Wilf coming to visit her in hospital, holding her hand and Nora sternly lecturing him that he was supposed to die first, that they had planned their deaths knowing Wilf would not do well as a widower.
She was right. Wilf started losing weight, though he never lost his sense of style, his ability to look perfectly dapper with a crisp shirt and nice tie.
After Nora died, Wilf faded quickly, though he had three people caring for him around the clock, including Laura.
“He died of a broken heart,” she said.
Wilf died at age 93 on Sept. 23, 2018. The couple’s last wish was that their ashes be spread together, on a section of the Bruce Trail in Hockley Valley, one of their favourite places to have a picnic.
“He planned it all,” said Laura, smiling as she recalled Wilf telling her it was OK to toast the couple using their cranberry glasses imported from England, glasses they never used.
Laura, former owner of My Sister’s Kitchen restaurant in St. Clements, had catered Nora’s funeral but all Wilf wanted served was Vincenzo’s pizza, turkey sandwiches and banana cream pie.
“It was the easiest funeral I’ve done,” she said.