Obituary of Bruce Clarke SMALL

BRUCE CLARKE SMALL 1919 - 2007 The Book of Small Dad said "Im ready to meet my Maker, and they meet on Saturday January 27, 2007. We dont know how the meeting went. Dad could be quite opinionated. He was also the most gentle and generous of men. Bruce was a born caregiver and he always put others before himself - a tiny flaw perhaps, but in his small way he was huge. He made the world a better and more interesting place. He had his opinions, however - the world according to Bruce - and traveling Dads path of life was always a provocative experience. Throughout, he never stopped making us laugh. We all love you, Dad. Bruce was the son of Lester Meredith Small and Eva May Mapes of Strasbourg. His father ran the printing shop and newspaper, The Strasbourg Mountaineer, the organ of the valley east of Long Lake. He had a brother, Jack, and two sisters, Lois and Margaret. The family moved from Strasbourg to Regina in 1929 at the beginning of the Depression, when Bruce was 10 years old. He attended Central Collegiate and met the love of his life, Mabel Steen, when he stopped to pick up a slipper she had dropped. True to his nature, he was always helping people, both in small ways and large. Bruce married Mabel at the Knox United Church in Regina, June 6, 1942. He served with the Royal Canadian Air Force on the east coast during WWII as a radar technician. At the end of the war the Smalls moved to Saskatoon, where Bruce completed his degree in pharmacy. After graduation, Bruce opened Smalls Pharmacy in Regina. Mabel and Bruce had one son, Bryan, born in 1947. In 1950, the Smalls moved to Toronto. Bruce worked for the very first Shoppers Drug Mart in Don Mills. He often worked two jobs to provide a good life for his wife and son, and he always put the well-being of others before himself. The Smalls moved to Vancouver in 1967, but when Mabel died in 1997, Bruce wanted to return to the places he loved best - Strasbourg and Regina. Bruce lived in the Frontenac Apartments on Lorne Street, where he had delivered newspapers as a boy. In 2003, with his son Bryan, he bought the original Small family home in Strasbourg and the home where Bruce had been born. Bruce spent the last week of his life with his loved ones in the Medical Intensive Care Unit at Regina General Hospital. The nurses and doctors there were as kind and caring as Bruce had been, and they made his last days in this world as pleasant as possible. Just as Bruce had done all his life, wherever and whenever he was needed. An on-line book of condolences may be signed at www.speersfuneralchapel.com