Frank Norman SHRIVE

SHRIVE, Frank Norman
In Hamilton, suddenly on September 11, 2004 in his 83rd year and on what would have been his 61st wedding anniversary, the beloved husband of Barbara Elder Shrive (Shaw), predeceased in 1999. Son of the late Frank James of Northhamptonshire and Mary (Alderson), and brother of Anthony of Mississauga. Dearly missed by son Christopher and his wife Carol, and loving 'Papa Norman' to Chani and Calum. Also sadly loving father to Terry and grandfather to Jeffrey and Jennifer. Treasured friend, co-pilot and avid conversationalist to innumerable Canadian aviators and academics. Norman grew up in the 1930s Hamilton Delta area where he established lifelong friendships and met the childhood sweetheart who later became his bride and eternal soul mate. His life was changed forever the day when, as a young boy, his father placed him in the cockpit of a friend's Avro Avian biplane and he soared briefly over the Niagara Escarpment. Years later, this love for flying yielded his renown as an accomplished flight instructor, navigator and Squadron Leader in the RCAF.
But yet another love took Norman from flying and on to literary scholarship and academia, and he began a teaching career at his alma mater Delta High School - a challenging assignment he later recalled with great fondness. He continued his university studies, completing his Ph.D. at Queen's while teaching at RMC, Kingston. Returning to Hamilton, he joined the then small Department of English at McMaster University. During a period of vigorous departmental growth, he served two terms as Chairman, steering it to prominence in the University and to an enviable nation-wide reputation both for scholarship and teaching. The department's subsequent decline was a matter of deep regret to him in the years of his retirement. Although his own area of specialisation was American literature, perhaps his greatest scholarly contribution was as a pioneer in studies of the emerging Canadian literary consciousness of the nineteenth century. His latest scholarly work, 'The Voice of the Burdash: Charles Mair and the Divided Mind in Canadian Literature', was published in his retirement.
In retirement, Norman realized further dreams, including the editing and publishing of his father's diaries as an RAF observer during the Russian Civil War. A renewed vigour in flying was realized through his association with the Canadian Warplane Heritage and he was working on an extensive account of his comrades in the wartime RCAF. He oversaw construction of a series of residences, including three in his favoured style of North American Post and Beam. He and Barbara travelled extensively across Europe, and established seasonal residences in Spain and Mexico. The loss of Barbara proved to be one of Norman's formidable challenges, and our hearts find solace in the vision of their reunion.
A celebration of this man's life, as much enriched by those who were a part of it as those touched by it, will be held for all family and friends Monday September 27, 2004 3 p.m. at the McMaster University Club.
'We have just sighted the Shetlands and this is my lucky day. Two years ago I caught a bit of German shrapnel. Today it is a bit of heather.'
From The Diary of a Poor Bloody Observer- Frank J. Shrive.
Oh, I have slipped the surly bonds of earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I've climbed and joined the tumbling mirth
Of sun-split clouds - done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of - wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov'ring there
I've chased the shouting wind along and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air.
Up, up the long delirious, burning blue
I've topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace,
Where never lark, or even eagle, flew;
And while with silent, lifting mind I've trod
The high untrespassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand and touched the face of God.
'High Flight' by John Gillespie Magee, Jr. (1941)