Obituaries

Bill was born in Sherman Texas on December 25, 1922. He attended high school in Oklahoma City and graduated as Valedictorian at age 16. He then entered Oklahoma University where he earned his Master’s degree in chemistry and physics graduating Summa Cum Laude.

Upon the outbreak of WWII, Bill enlisted in the US Army and served in Hawaii and Iwo Jima.

After the war, Bill received a Rhodes Scholarship to further his education at Oxford University in England. An exception was made by the Rhodes committee during those years after the war that allowed a recipient to bring their spouse with them to England, so he married Betty in 1948 and they began their life together. It was at Oxford that Bill received his PhD.

Bill and Betty came to Lake Jackson, Texas in 1955 where Bill worked as a chemist for Dow Chemical in research and development. Bill spent 35 years at Dow where he developed several patents for Dow and mentored many young chemists. He was known as the “go to” person to help solve problems that no one else could.

Bill was active in the community with the American Legion, various nature clubs, and Coastal Corners square dance club. He also served as a reserve officer for the Brazoria County Sheriff Department as well as a docent for the Natural Science museum.

His love of science, nature, and the outdoors was passed on to his family, and celebrated early on with a yearly trip to Garner State Park. Many a family member, including grandkids, have had a teaching moment or two under a tree overlooking the Frio River. Bill was always in the teaching mode and many have benefited from his wisdom. One of Bill’s grandsons recently ran into an old friend of Bill’s who told him, “I always wondered what it was like to be Bill, and walk into the room, and know you were the smartest one there”.

Bill loved all music, and even though he couldn’t carry a tune in a bucket, loved to sing along with gusto to the Gilbert and Sullivan operettas and hum along to the beautiful Viennese waltzes. Many will remember his theatrical role at The Center as the aging count in the stage play, “Amadeus”.

Bill was a staunch conservative Republican who loved his country and was a true patriot. He was one of the last remaining of the Greatest Generation. Bill always welcomed a good debate based on logic and facts, and never held a grudge against anyone who held the opposing view. Bill’s kindness, steadfastness and gentle ways will be forever missed by those who knew and loved this amazing man.

Dan Lockwood McGurk passed away at his home in Newport Beach on September 3, 2020 at the age of 94. Dan died of natural causes. Son of Herbert Lockwood McGurk and Mary Bray McGurk, Dan was born in Eufaula, Alabama on June 30, 1926. He lived his early life in Eufaula, London, Argentina, and Connecticut as his father was given various positions with Frigidaire. He went on to receive a degree in Engineering from Texas A&M and then graduated from the United States Military Academy at West Point in 1949. He was awarded a Rhodes Scholarship to Oxford University where he received degrees in Economics, Philosophy and Political Science. In 1956, Dan left military service and began a decades-long career in the nascent computer industry, first with TRW and eventually with Scientific Data Systems. Shortly after Xerox acquired SDS in 1971, Dan retired to become a full-time investor and entrepreneur. In 1975, he was asked to join then President Ford's administration as an assistant director in the Office of Management Budget, a position he kept until President Carter took office. In 1985, Dan co-founded Southland Title (now Lawyers Title) with family friend, David Cronenbold, and went on to serve as Chairman of the Board for the next 20 years. Dan believed in being a strong contributing member of his community. He held positions in a number of southern California non-profit organizations, with a focus on helping disadvantaged youth become leaders. He also set up a family non-profit 501C-3, The McGurk Foundation, dedicated to supporting self-sufficiency among young people in need. One of Dan's other passions was sailing. Besides participating in local races from southern California to Baja, Dan raced in the TransPac from Los Angeles to Hawaii, and sailed across the Atlantic from Miami to Portugal in a 45' sloop. He kept a sailboat in front of his home in Newport Beach for decades. Above all, Dan was a family man. He married Francis Brady Murphy in 1949 and had four children: Christine, Herbert Lockwood II, William Arthur Patrick, and Michael Francis Forest. After the couple divorced, Dan married Shirley Ann Reece Cain and eventually adopted her three children: Scott Randall Cain, Kelly Corinne and Stacey Erin. After Shirley passed away, Dan married a third time at the age of 86 to Joan Sydney Anderson of Houston, Texas. At 94, Dan had lived a life filled with service, new technology, adventure and family. He is survived by his loving wife Joan, all 7 of his children, 13 grandchildren and 9 great grandchildren

Architect, outdoorsman, educator, and life-long learner, James Waugh was born in Winnipeg on May 21, 1945 and died of cancer in Calgary on August 24, 2020.

In September 1968, on the chilly decks of the Empress of England that carried him to Oxford, Jim had a camera around his neck, his eyes surveying the horizon like a bird of prey. This was a prelude to decades of keen observation and enjoyment of life. As a student at McGill University, he was already looking beyond the conventional boundaries of architecture, more interested in the impact of building design on people than in winning the aesthetic acclaim of clients or peers. As a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford, he studied philosophy, psychology, and physiology to prepare for that broader approach. As Bob Rae (Ontario and Balliol, 1969), former premier of Ontario and leader of Canada’s Liberal Party, recalls, “He was an exceptionally thoughtful man who took full advantage of what Oxford had to offer, doing brilliantly in a challenging graduate course before putting that knowledge into action.”

By the time he returned to Canada in the mid 1970s to teach at the newly-formed architecture school of the University of Calgary, Jim was one of a dozen people in the world putting human behaviour at the centre of the profession. Other than one stunning corporate building, Shell Court in Calgary, he designed modest structures for community organizations with limited budgets like the Girl Guides, which needed to last, be easy to run, and stand up to unusual challenges. In planning a shelter for battered women, for example, he had to foresee outraged husbands ramming the facility with a pick-up truck.

A champion swimmer at McGill, Jim was tall and broad-shouldered, but soft-spoken and self-deprecating rather than overbearing. Some thought him shy, while others saw him radiating among those he was comfortable with, who shared his curiosity, his attention to detail, and his boyish sense of fun. When he laughed, it could be uproarious, his eyes glinting with mirth but also signs of a certain Prairie restraint thrown to the wind. He had little time for nonsense but was always eager to learn. After a pompous lecture by a renowned architect at McGill describing the highlights of his glorious career, which had the student audience rolling their eyes, Jim was awarded a prize for posing the most intelligent question.

He had interests as wide as the Rocky Mountains and remembered other people’s pursuits with photographic faithfulness. He commiserated with one friend whom he hadn’t seen in twenty years on the death of the last surviving member of the Bloomsbury Group. And his sense of history and humour reinforced each other. He chuckled when told of Che Guevara’s parting words before going off to fight in the eastern Congo – “I feel the ribs of Rocinante [Don Quixote’s horse] pressing against my legs” – as if they summed up his own idealism and ambition, tempered with reality. He relished the outdoors and long-distance walks, including a memorable fifteen-mile trek across a peat bog at Cape Wrath. But he also loved books and libraries and the Oxford English Dictionary, where he would trace the origins of obsolete words as keenly as his own family history.

His daughter Xanna remembers him as a remarkable father, not only to her but also to friends who had lost their own or were less fortunate in that respect. Jim was loyal to his friends but could discomfit them with his piercing honesty. “I’d be surprised if you spent much time in ‘immense Gothic spaces’,” he wrote to one, who had described a visit to Mont St. Michel, “since most of the Mont pre-dates the Gothic era by a century or two.” Yet his learning and precision never got in the way of being practical. In retirement, he could be found digging the Prospect Trail which he designed to connect the Elbow River pathways to downtown Calgary and re-shaping the landscape of his property in Hawaii.

A devoted educator, he served for thirty years on the Rhodes Scholarship Selection Committee for the Prairie Provinces, where his wit and lack of stuffiness set applicants at their ease. His wife Charlene Prickett, whose Arkansas upbringing prepared her badly for the rigours of a Canadian winter, wanted them to slip away each year to Hawaii by the beginning of November, but Jim would insist on seeing the selection process through. He saw promise in everyone, inviting a successful candidate home for dinner one evening alongside another who had fallen short, to buck up his spirits. “He shared stories of his life and career,” the first recalled, “in an utterly warm and unpretentious way. I marvelled at his infectious energy and passion for life.”

At the University of Calgary, he endowed a Rural Medicine Residency Award to honour his two grandfathers, who were country doctors, and an architecture scholarship for those who had demonstrated a palpable concern for the well-being of others.

Former parliamentarian William Milner Cox, a member of the vaunted “Class of ’68”, has died. He was 91. Mr Cox was among a group of MPs who won seats in the 1968 election and were to make their mark on the Bermudian political landscape in the following decades. The 1968 election is widely considered the beginning of the modern political system in Bermuda. Mr Cox, widely known as Bill, served as a United Bermuda Party MP in Devonshire South from 1968 to 1976, and again from 1980 until his retirement in 1993. He also served as Minister of Education. Writing in the book Seeking Truth, Mr Cox said of his time as an MP: “I put the National Trust Act 1971 through the House of Assembly and sponsored a few Private Bills including daylight saving time, decriminalisation of homosexuality and the abolition of capital punishment. The latter two were defeated, but subsequently have been passed.” He also tabled a motion in 1974 for leaner penalties for minor drug offences. Mr Cox was educated at Saltus Grammar School and from 1943 onwards at Trinity College School in Port Hope, Ontario. In Seeking Truth, he wrote: “By 1943, the threat of Nazi U-boats had abated … I was one of 16 boys and girls who in September boarded a small freighter, Fort Amherst, that plied Bermuda-New York. We were given life jackets and there were other precautions in case we were torpedoed. Those of us destined for TCS went by train to Port Hope. We stayed in Canada during Christmas and Easter school vacations until the war was over.” Mr Cox earned a bachelor of arts degree, with a major in history, at Trinity College, University of Toronto, in 1951. A keen sportsman, he played on the Trinity College soccer team, serving as its captain during his last year at the school. While in Canada, he volunteered for the Canadian Army. Mr Cox wrote: “One had to be fit, join for at least two years, attend parades during term time and spend at least 16 weeks each summer in army camp. I have a Commission as Lieutenant in the Canadian Army signed by Alexander of Tunis who was Governor General at the time. ”Mr Cox was Bermuda’s Rhodes Scholar in 1951. He attended Corpus Christi College at Oxford University, graduating in 1953 with a degree in jurisprudence. He was later called to the English Bar. Mr Cox wrote that he occasionally played on the Corpus Christi soccer team, but his primary athletic interest was rowing, and he was on the Corpus “first eight” during his two years there. Returning to the island, Mr Cox was called to the Bermuda Bar in 1956. He worked at the Bank of Bermuda and later at the law firm Appleby Spurling & Kempe before going into partnership with his second cousin, David Wilkinson, to establish the firm Cox & Wilkinson, now Cox Hallett Wilkinson. In 1970, Mr Cox became honorary consul for the Netherlands in Bermuda, serving in the position for more than 20 years. Upon his retirement, he was made a Knight in the Order of Orange-Nassau.