Remembering the life of Neil REID (2025)

Born into a farming family in North Kingston in November, 1946, Neil was a strong yet mischievous student, better suited for banking than farming, and went to work for the Bank of Nova Scotia in Middleton at the age of 18. He stayed with Scotiabank for his entire career, retiring in 2004. Neil's work with Scotiabank sent him around the world, including to Ontario, where he met his wife Carole, also a Scotiabanker and newly arrived from Trinidad, at a branch in Toronto. Early in his career, Neil was privileged to explore Central and Eastern Canada through the bank, working in Manitoba, New Brunswick, Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, Southern and Northern Ontario, and Quebec. In his '69 Dodge Dart, he criss-crossed Canada for the bank, frequently driving home to his sisters and mother in Kingston, through every type of weather Canada could muster, from whichever hotel he called home during his travels. Neil also worked extensively in Barbados, Bermuda, England, Ireland, Lebanon, the Netherlands, Puerto Rico, Trinidad, and the United States before settling down with Carole in St. Catharines, and then Oakville, ON. While in Oakville, Neil threw himself into community life. He founded and chaired a community group that successfully fought industrial pollution in Oakville and Mississauga. He was the founding president of his neighbourhood residents' association, the Clearview Oakville Community Association (COCA), and served as a Halton District School Board trustee. Hockey was a fixture in Neil's life. He grew up playing on frozen irrigation ponds with cow patties for pucks. When he traded rural life for city living he played in leagues in Niagara and then Toronto. Neil played twice per week, only stopping in his fifties when he moved to Venezuela. He was a life-long Montreal Canadiens fan who heartily enjoyed ribbing his best friend Robin's love of the Toronto Maple Leafs, going so far as to mount his Habs jersey from the top of Robin's TV aerial (it was the 80s, after all) in the middle of the night to celebrate a Habs victory over the Leafs. Robin awoke to the shame of the red, white, and blue flying in the wind for all to see, and reciprocated at the first opportunity. Saturday nights always found Neil and Robin side by side on the couch in their jerseys, watching Hockey Night in Canada. Neil was insatiably curious. He was a life-long reader who keenly enjoyed sitting in his home library, reading Thomas Hardy, George Elliott, Maupassant, Bill Bryson, dictionaries, and encyclopaedias. He went through Kindle after Kindle, voraciously consuming crime thrillers, spy novels, detective series, and historical fiction. He was fascinated by early explorers, world religions, and geopolitics. His love of history and interest in genealogy saw him spend summers taking his children to churches and graveyards throughout Nova Scotia, recording 350 years of their family's presence as farmers throughout the Annapolis Valley. Neil was an active and loving father. He spent his winters skating and tobogganing with his children, running back up the hills while pulling his son and daughter behind him on their sled. Summers were passed with his children, helping out on his mother's and sister's farms, RVing through Atlantic Canada, and camping in Southern Ontario with his wife, children, and beloved dog Ginger. He always had time for a game of chess or Monopoly with his grandson, cribbage with his daughter, or building anything and everything with his son. In his late forties, Neil started studying Spanish, and soon after went to work for a Scotiabank affiliate in Venezuela. He and Carole lived in Venezuela for nearly 5 years, moving home immediately after a failed coup. While there, he worked entirely in Spanish and quickly became a fluent speaker, which enabled his working throughout Latin America and the Spanish-speaking Caribbean. He finished his banking career with assignments in Chile, Ecuador, and the Dominican Republic, as well as Curacao and St. Lucia. Neil and Carole retired to Ontario and rural Tobago, where, always handy and relishing a challenge, Neil built his own home. Neil spent his days on his tractor, digging roads and ditches or clearing fallen coconut palms for his rural neighbours in Tobago, welding and mixing concrete for his long list of projects, listening to the cocricos, roosters, and goats that wandered freely, and playing with his seven Belgian shepherds and three huskies. His garage, exercise bike, and his hammock overlooked the ocean, and were his sanctuaries. Neil Reid died suddenly but peacefully at home on Thursday April 11 2024, aged 77, with his wife, his many dogs, and his Kindle nearby. He is survived by his wife of 53 years, Carole (nee Als); his daughter, June Anne; his son, Nigel; his grandson, Ezra; his sisters, Barbara Van Buskirk and Eileen Bezanson; and was pre-deceased by his sister, Betty Magee and mother, Francis Hudgins (nee Neilly). Neil is much loved, and is sorely missed.

Published on June 1, 2024in&nbspThe Annapolis Valley Register