Tribute

Aug 1, 1941 – May 5, 2026

Lawrence was born in New York City on August 1, 1941 and raised in Texas but mostly in Stamford, Connecticut. At 18 he joined the U.S. Navy for 4 years and then continued to Seattle, Washington for university for 2 years.

From Seattle he began an epic trip on a freighter to India where he bought his first of many Land Rover and drove to the Pyrenees mountains where it broke down. He continued to England and bought his sailboat Paulina, sailing her to Florida. He then delivered a ketch back to England and returned to Seattle. On his way to the Slocan Valley to visit friends he was told of Salt Spring Island and checked it out on the way back and stayed, working for Norm Twa blasting and fishing herring with Ken Silvey of Galiano.

He proudly became a Canadian citizen, working both sides of the border doing various jobs until he received his electrician’s ticket in Whitehorse. He was a passionate skydiver in Sidney and Casa Grande, Arizona.

A fortuitous inheritance allowed him to buy a lovely farm in the Sundre, Alberta area where he spent 20 contented years before failing health made it necessary for a home care. His ex-wife Mary Harkema and son Noah Hughes brought him back to Salt Spring where he lived a year, then to Greenwoods Eldercare for the last 6 months of his life, dying on May 5, 2026.

He leaves behind his children Elizabeth Frankel- Rivera, Tom Lawrence-Jones, Blake Langley and Noah Hughes; his grandchildren Cassius, Ian, Jesse, Piper and Araya and his cousin Kathy Greenthal.

He was predeceased by his beloved daughter Darcy Jane Hughes in 2008.

….. And once you have tasted flight, you will walk

the earth with your eyes turned skyward, for there

you have been and there you long to return….

~ Leonardo da Vinci