Hank van Dodewaard
A resident of Iroquois, Henk van Dodewaard passed away peacefully at the Cornwall CareforHospice on Wednesday, December 10th, 2014. He was in his 85th year.
Henk was the dearly beloved husband of Agnes van Dodewaard. He was loving father of Arie (Ineke) of RR 3 Williamsburg, Marja (Marcel) Smellink of Iroquois, Henry (Brenda) of Iroquois, John (Janis) of Iroquois, Erik (Donna) of Brockville and Peter (Debra) of Iroquois.
He was dear brother of Corrie van Dodewaard of Holland, Coby (James) Maida of Malawi and Arie van Dodewaard of Holland.
Henk was predeceased by two grandsons Michael and Daniel. He will be sadly missed by his 19 grandchildren and five great- grandchildren. Also survived by many nieces and nephews.
Henk was born in Heteren in the Netherlands, the second oldest of four kids. He married Agnes in 1957, and they celebrated their 57th wedding anniversary on November 27th, 2014, at the hospice surrounded by their family.
As a blacksmith, Henk made some beautiful “artwork”. One piece was a rooster which he helped make, and place on the top of a church in Holland. He also made two cradles for his grandchildren.
Henk had different jobs; he drove an excavator for a couple of years, one of them was built on the back of a truck which he built himself, He was also a tool and die maker and machinist.
Henk and Agnes had five boys and one girl. The last couple of years in Holland, he had his own business, and sometimes he made 36 hour “days” welding buckets, and everything else in steel, like scaffolding and soil testing equipment for Venezuela.
In 1976, Henk decided to take a look in Canada, and when he returned, he just said to his family “We are moving”. So in July 1977, when Henk was 47, he moved his family to Canada. A time a lot of us are going “We need to slow down”, but not Henk, he kept working.
In the early 80’s, Henk and his sons started their own business, a welding and repair business that did repairs and made buckets. D and S Manufacturing was born. He worked until he was 75, and even after that he had to check up to see if the boys were doing all right.
He loved making little kids laugh, especially his grand kids and great-grandchildren. He was a kid at heart.
Pa/opa was a great husband, father, father-in-law, grandfather and great-grandfather, and he will be sadly missed.
Friends called at the Marsden McLaughlin in Williamsburg, on Friday, December 12, from 2-4 and 7-9 p.m. Funeral service was held at Dixon’s Corners Community Christian Reform Church on Saturday, December 13, 2014 at 11 a.m.
Special thanks go to Dr. Saad Abbud and his staff, the staff of J. W. MacIntosh Seniors’ Support Centre-Assisted Living, and the doctors, nurses and other staff at the Cornwall Carefor Hospice.
Donations to Carefor Hospice would be gratefully acknowledged by the family.