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JEAN VAN DE VOORT

January 19, 2010

VAN DE VOORT (JEAN HUBERT)


Jan departed from this world, in peace, on January 19th 2010, not long after his 89th birthday. Born in Holland, the 7th of 14 children, he left home early in life to join the merchant navy and saw much of the world, returning to take part in the resistance during WW II and surviving Buchenwald. Subsequently, working as a navigator for the Royal Dutch Airlines in the far-east, he met and married Henriette Millard, a survivor of the Japanese concentration camps in Indonesia. They had two children, Fred and Karin, and moved to Indonesia. Forced to leave due to anti-colonial unrest, the family immigrated to Canada, where Jan worked first as a logger, then as an insurance salesman and finally joined Indian Affairs, where he found his true calling. Always on the move, he was posted in Terrace, the Queen Charlottes, Bella Coola, Nanaimo, Edmonton and finally Williams Lake, where, as a strong believer in self-sufficiency, he directed his energies toward placing indigenous peoples in control of their own destiny. Jan is survived by his wife, two children and will be dearly missed by his immediate family and friends, as well as the many people whose lives he touched as he made a very positive and joyful journey through a well lived life. No service by request.

frederik.vandevoort@mcgill.ca - Adieu.