September 10, 1924 - July 26, 2020
Wednesday, Sept 10, 1924, a day that will live in infamy as Robert Noble Longmoore made his noisy entry into the world of Imperial, Saskatchewan and his unsuspecting parents, Elizabeth and Cecil. The "Longmooses", like contrarian tumbleweeds, a description which fitted Bert to a Tee, rolled upwind and uphill to the much milder climes of BC. There, during the hungry thirties, Bert grew up with his younger sister Margaret in the rough and tumble neighbourhoods of East Vancouver. Very much a sportsman, he played every sport from soccer to ladies baseball. The older he got, the better he was. The family can only attest to his love of golf and his time honoured tradition of heaving his clubs into the bushes. To say that his fuse was short would be an insult to vertically challenged fuses. He played for many years with many people, most, only once. What better use of a short fuse than to send it to war. So with a hint from his well-connected sister that he was about to be conscripted into the army, young Bert promptly joined the RCAF in 1943. Something about sleeping between clean sheets appealed. Although in later years he maintained that he had been a tail gunner he was in fact a clerk in London where, despite Adolf's best efforts and like so many of the children from the depression, he lived some of the best years of his life. Post war in Vancouver is where Bert met fellow Saskatchewanian emigre Marion Wowchuk and, after some birds and bees stuff, produced Marilyn, Janet and Diane in double quick time. Zooming ahead and with the help of Bob, Tim and Jochen begat in equal measure grandchildren Mike, Craig, Laura, Michelle, Helgi and Johannes which led to seven great grandchildren and a partridge in a pear tree. If life's work is to pass on your genes: mission accomplished. Bert and Marion moved a couple of times between the Big Smoke and Victoria, deciding to spend their retirement years near family in Duncan. With Marion's passing in 2007, Bob, as he now liked to be called, briefly lived on his own before moving into Assisted Living and finally spending his last five years at The Heights at Mount View in Saanich. Dementia was a double edged sword for Bob; on the one hand, he lost much of what had made him Bert, but on the other hand, as Bob, he was much more pleasant to be around. He finally packed up his lunch pail in the wee hours of July 26, 2020 at the age of 95 under the watchful care of the kind staff at The Heights, to whom we owe our heartfelt thanks.