Obituary of Donald Lawson

LAWSON: Donald – Donald Lawson died on August 19th in Chatham. He lived in Ridgetown for 44 years. He was born in Kitchener in 1942, lived there and on a farm until the family unhappily moved to Southern California for his father’s health. Don finished High School in Escondido with a scholarship to the University of Southern California at Riverside. He read History, Political Science and German there, receiving his BA in 1967 and returning to Ontario. He taught in Blenheim District High School until 1989. He believed that any worthwhile teacher teaches, not advancing to an office to theorise. The blackboard was his friend, and his students knew how he could fill it! His students were “Mr” and “Miss”, never first names. At the outbreak of the Gulf War he was asked to explain the significance of the war to the school. In the gym, at a moment’s notice, with a badminton net between him and his audience, he did so. In 1975 Don designed and drew the Coat of Arms for Ridgetown. It was approved and “granted” by the Heraldic Authority of Canada, in time for the centennial. Soon after he similarly “achieved” the Coat of Arms for Ridgetown High School. He was a member of the Historical Society of Ridgetown, a liberal socialist all his life, he loved the town, and was deeply hurt when the Ontario-Gothic United Church and Spire were lost. The church was an historic and artistic landmark for the town; surely worthy of so-called “rejuvenation”. Don was an examiner for the Diploma of Heraldic Art. In 1981 he was made an honorary fellow of the Heraldic Authority by the Governor General. In 1982 he got his Master’s degree in German Literature from the University of Western Ontario, where he taught for a year, before returning to Ridgetown to teach at the High School until he retired in 1997. Don had just finished a German/English translation on the very sensitive, difficult heritage Nazi Germany imposed on the city of Nuremberg. Don is missed by those who knew him and by his sister Trudy McHugh and family in Spokane, Wash. and by his in-laws in Ireland, Donal Magee and family, and by his wife Máire. NO FLOWERS PLEASE, AS YOUR EXPRESSION OF SYMPATHY.