Nelson GUTNICK

GUTNICK, Nelson
July 11, 1924 - March 4, 2014
Nelson Gutnick died peacefully in the early morning hours of Tuesday, March 4 at the Foothills Hospital in Calgary, Alberta. Nelson was gentle to his very core, a man who lived the ideals that he cherished. Brought up with his two younger brothers in a Jewish orphanage in Winnipeg's North End, Dad spent the next seven decades building a vast family of kindred souls. When he was not at the kitchen table with Þórdis, his wife of 55 years, Nelson was with First Nations' communities or in university classrooms or behind a shopping cart at the Co-op, always deep in conversation with others. As theologian Martin Buber wrote of the primary word I-Thou, Nelson believed that "all real living is meeting." Preferably over black coffee. Nelson was a humanist who appreciated life's mystery, travel, Bach, the Toronto Blue Jays, Greek salad, St. Viateur bagels and his son-in-law Bernard's skills with a paintbrush and a hammer. While still a teenager, he enlisted in the Canadian Armed Forces and landed in Arromanche, Normandy, serving as a medic in the Second World War. Throughout his long career as a social worker, a community development worker with the federal Department of Indian Affairs in Saskatchewan, Alberta and the Northwest Territories, and later as a lecturer in the Faculty of Social Work at the University of Calgary, he encouraged and supported people to follow their own path towards personal understanding and social justice. In 1987, Nelson was awarded the Chief David Crowchild Memorial Award for his work bridging Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal cultural communities. Þórdis's influence was profound - the proof being that Nelson slowly came to believe he was, like Thordis, Icelandic-Canadian. The proof being, he could recognize a decent vinatarta. Nelson was predeceased by his mother Rebecca in 1933, his father Abraham in 1978 and his wife Þórdis, née Ásgeirsson, in 2010. Left to mourn and carry his lessons forward are his many friends, his brothers Paul and Kenneth, children David (Loreen Pindera), Reva (Tomas Allen), Tannis (Bernard Feys) and Annalisa, grandchildren Sign, Iléana, Stefán and Geovanni and extended family in British Columbia, Saskatchewan and Manitoba. A celebration of Nelson's life will take place in Tilley hat season, next July. The family thanks the caring staff at Edgemont Retirement Residence and the palliative care team at Foothills Hospital. In lieu of flowers , donations in Nelson's memory may be made to the Awo Taan Healing Lodge (www.awotaan.org) or the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada (www.heartandstroke.ca).