William Gladwin Parfitt
(Dec. 28, 1924 – July 12, 2025)
Predeceased by his siblings Glen, Lucille and Celia, and most recently his eldest son Harry (July 15, 1949 – May 31, 2025)
Survived by his wife Sheila, sister Christine, and children Marjorie, Barbara Lou, Christopher, Robin, and Matthew
William Gladwin Parfitt (Bill) passed away peacefully on July 12, 2025 at the North Bay Regional Health Center in his 101st year. Bill lived a full and incredibly active life through extraordinary times and on his own terms at the Parfitt Farm on Four Mile Lake Road in Widdifield township until July 9, 2025.
Bill was the first-born son of Christopher Joseph Parfitt, born in Yorkshire England and Marjorie (Hedges) Parfitt, born in Buffalo New York. Bill’s father, a veteran of the First World War, bought the farm located on the South Half of Lot 10, Concession II in Widdifield Township in May 1919. He used the Soldier’s Settlement he received after returning home from overseas. Bill grew up on the farm helping to grow turnips, cabbage and rhubarb and making maple syrup. He also helped his father cut firewood and spent time fishing for trout in the local streams and at Otter Lake to help feed the growing family. His family included three younger sisters, Christine, Lucille and Celia and baby brother Glen. He became a good marksman at an early age shooting squirrels in the head to sell the hides to help bring in money for the family.
Bill’s life changed forever just before Christmas in 1939, when his father was brought home by the police from his job as bush foreman in charge of clearing the land for the new airport. Bill’s father had suffered some sort of mental breakdown, likely linked to trauma from fighting in the trenches and being gassed during World War 1 and triggered by the looming threat of another war in Europe. Bills’ father was taken to a mental hospital in Toronto never to return to the farm. His mother, Marjorie, took the three younger sisters and brother to Toronto to stay with relatives while she took a refresher course to go back to teaching. Bill stayed on at the farm until the late summer of 1940 when it was decided that he should join the family in Toronto. He took on a job as a delivery boy and butcher for $9 per week to help pay the mortgage on the farm. After three years of working and doing night courses, Bill joined the RCAF at the age of 18.
In December 1943, Bill passed the RCAF Gunnery Course at Mt. Pleasant P.E.I., after which he was dispatched to England for further training which he completed by December 1944. Starting in January 1945, Bill flew 22 active missions over hostile Germany as the rear gunner (Tail End Charlie) in a Lancaster Bomber with the 115 squadron out of Witchford. With the war ending in early May Bill participated in 4 more missions to drop food and supplies over Holland and bring POW’s home. While overseas, Bill met the love of his life, Sheila Utting, at a dance. He showed up at her father’s door a few weeks later and after some gentlemanly courting, convinced her to marry him, but her father would not let her leave England until she was 19. He left her with some money for passage and returned home to wait for Sheila. They were married on the 23rd of August 1947 in Toronto, after Bill and his mother travelled to New York to pick her up.
After a short stay in Toronto, Bill and Sheila moved to the farm in North Bay to begin etching out a life on the sandy farm in Widdifield township. To raise some capital, Bill worked double shifts on the debarker at Temiskaming for the first summer, while Sheila worked as a cook. They lived in a tent on the Ontario side of the Ottawa River and managed to save $3,000 that summer. With some working capital, Bill bought their first Tractor, a brand new Farmall Super C. With his smart, hard-working wife Sheila, and a new tractor, Bill began what he referred to as the “Real Adventure”. Over the next 30 plus years, Bill oversaw the creation of a successful multi-faceted farming operation which at its peak produced annually 20,000 bushels of potatoes, 5,000 bushels of turnips, as well as hay, barley and oats for a 50 head beef herd. The beef and some pigs provided manure for fertilizer, steers and heifers for sale each year, extra income and food for the family. In addition, each spring roughly 2,000 maple trees were tapped to produce, in a good year, up to 500 gallons of maple syrup.
In those initial years of building up the farm Bill and Sheila had 4 children, Harry (July 15, 1949), Marjorie (January 17, 1951), Barbara Lou (November 16, 1952) and Christopher (January 17, 1954). Some years later Robin (February 13, 1962) and Matthew (August 23, 1965) were born. When asked how he managed all the labour on the farm, Bill once said “I grow that too”. During these busy years, the Farm kitchen would become “Grand Central Station” as Bill’s English mother-in-law coined it. Many a neighbour, family acquaintance, traveller and distant relative would be welcomed to spend time at the Farm and, in return for some labour, would be well fed and subjected to Bill’s interrogation and get to listen to his life lessons and political views at the table over dinner. They were also treated to and welcome to join in vociferous family arguments.
In addition to the Farm, Bill was a very active member of the community. He became involved in local politics when he ran for the local school board, on which he served for some 18 years. Bill was also very active in the Crop Improvement Association and Cattleman’s Association. In 1968, he was awarded Farmer of The Year by the Department of Agriculture and the North Bay Kiwanis Club for his leadership in rural and urban areas and participation in agricultural and civic organizations. He was one of the first farmers in Northern Ontario to implement farm management techniques such as crop rotation, applying agricultural limestone and fertilizers to maximize yields and maintain healthy soils.
Bill started to work less and play more in the mid 70’s when his oldest son Harry finished a degree in agriculture at Guelph and began to take on more of the day-to-day work on the farm. He spent more time fishing and moose hunting, both things he loved to do. He also became quite active in politics, sitting on local political party associations, helping campaign, and volunteering to help with signs and other tasks. Bill and Sheila (and often family and friends) also regularly travelled across Canada visiting his children, grandchildren and relatives on both the east and west coast. On these trips he always carried a fishing rod, and either a canoe on his car or a boat behind his truck. He caught fish everywhere, including cod in the Atlantic Ocean, brook trout in the ponds of Newfoundland, lake trout in the lakes of Ontario, rainbow trout in the lakes of Northern Saskatchewan and the Rocky Mountains, and salmon in the Pacific Ocean.
In his later years, Bill became focussed on remembering those who did not come home from WWII and promoting world peace. This included spearheading the naming of a park on Four Mile Lake after the Algonquin Regiment in memory of some of his childhood friends who he swam with there growing up and whose lives were lost in WWII. Bill also set up his own International Peace Park on the farm in an effort to help visitors understand the century of death which included the two World Wars he and his father had survived and drive home the message that we need to stop fighting and learn to get along. This message came out loud and clear during a small speech he made at the RCAF 100th anniversary gala at the Capital Center in late 2024 and a speech he gave at his 100th birthday party at the West Ferris Legion in late December 2024.
When asked, in his later years how he was, Bill would often say, “you have only good days”. There are no bad days as long as you wake up in the morning and are able to go out and face the day.” His favorite saying was, it is better to be born lucky than rich. At the end of the day, Bill was very lucky. He survived the war and many close calls on the farm; married and shared his life with Sheila for almost 78 years; drove “a million miles criss-crossing Canada without an accident” (or so he said); and raised 6 successful children, which led to 14 grandchildren and 14 great grandchildren. He often said, “There are only two things you leave behind in this life, your ideas and your children.” Bill, thank you for both.
Family receiving friends at Hillside Funeral Services, 362 Airport Rd, on Thursday July 24th from 2 until 4 and 7 until 9 pm.
In tune with Bill’s lifelong passion to education and peace, donations made to Science for Peace at: https://www.scienceforpeace.org/ would be appreciated.
Hillside Funeral Services Ltd.
