Willy was born on March 19, 1938, the middle son of 9 brothers. They were raised on a farm in the beautiful countryside of Switzerland. A few years ago, we had the pleasure of travelling to Switzerland with dad and seeing the home he grew up in, which was basically one end of long building, while the other end housed the animals. I remember thinking that I couldn’t imagine the chaos and wrestling that went on between those 9 boys in that small space. As a young man he immigrated to Canada to pursue a dream of being a rodeo steer wrestler. As life sometimes has its own plans, the dream of professional rodeo riding was cut short when the horn of a stubborn steer ripped his arm apart. He moved to Hudson Bay to work for a rancher south of town. During a trip to town, he met the woman he would marry, and they spent the rest of their lives together until mom’s passing. Many of those years were spent building a farm together north of town on land that was originally owned by dad’s in-laws, Jack and Winnie Bell. Dad was a stepfather to us three girls, but he quickly earned the title, dad. As he was from a large family of all boys, there must have been quite a learning curve to be in a ready-made family with all girls. Not quite the farm hands he was used to! Along with farming dad worked at MacMillan Bloedel as a saw filer for many years until his retirement. Dad had a genuine love of quarter horses and attended numerous horse shows over his lifetime. He won many accolades for the horses he raised and trained. This love of raising, training, and showing horses was shared with his youngest daughter, Sandi and her family. They purchased the family farm and mom and dad moved into town after mom got sick. We were all quite surprised when her hard-working cowboy, stepped up to be the nurse, cook and housekeeper she needed so that she could stay home until she passed. With practice he became a pretty good cook, lucky for mom, as the only meal he could cook when us kids were young was macaroni with a box of salt and cut up a sloppy fried egg into it. Jokes aside, we hadn’t seen this side of him before and we will always be grateful for how he lovingly took care of mom until the end. Dad leaves to mourn, his daughters, Cathy Lewellin, Gwen Smith, and Sandi (Blair) Marchant. His three grandchildren, Jordan Smith, Mallory (Tyler) Roberts and Sydney Marchant. He had two great grandchildren, Lily and Mason Roberts. He leaves one brother Franz Meyer, nieces, and nephews still in Switzerland. He was predeceased by his parents, his wife Mavis and 7 of his brothers. He cherished the times he got to return home to Switzerland. After losing contact with his family for many years, they were reunited, after friends managed to locate Franz during a trip to Switzerland. Dad was forever grateful for this.
A Service will be held at a later date.