I was born in Toronto c. Sept 6, 1950, at St. Joseph's hospital overlooking Lake Ontario,
the eldest of three brothers (siblings Allan Ronald, born November 6, 1952, and
Robert George, born November 19, 1964). Our family lived
for the most part of my youth along St. Clair Avenue, on the border of York Township and the
West Toronto Junction.
|
|
|
"Wayne" was simply a name that my father liked. He was a big
fan of westerns, and especially of actor John Wayne. My middle name
Edgar was in honour of my uncle Edgar John Cunneyworth (who was, in turn,
named after his father, Ernest Edgar Cunneyworth, who was named after his
uncle, Ernest Edgar Eason).
|
|
My Cunneyworth lineage, going back in time, to the first Canadian Cunneyworth immigrants from
Yorkshire, England:
Ronald Henry Victor Cunneyworth (1929-2007) / Mary Angela Oresky (1930-)
Ernest Edgar Cunneyworth (1893-1957) /
Ellen "Nellie" Catherine Sullivan (1897-1970)
George William Cunneyworth (1863-1923) / Susan Ann Eason (1868-1961)
George Cunneyworth (1833?-1896) / Esther McGraw (1833-18??)
Thomas Cunneyworth (18??-18??) / Ann Reynard (1812-1892)
Warning to future genealogists: There are two contemporary Wayne Cunneyworths. We are both
descended from
Thomas Cunneyworth (18??-18??) / Ann Reynard (1812-1892).
We were born only 2 years apart (and, as my elder, he rightfully claims the title of "Wayne
Cunneyworth The First"). My namesake was born and raised in Ottawa; I have spent many work
related visits of months-at-a-time in Ottawa at various temporary residences since 1983. Before
we had met, Wayne The First once showed up at a car rental counter at the Ottawa airport, only to
hear that I had just left a few minutes earlier with his rental car. I provide this declaration
in the hope of sparing Wayne The First from any embarassment due to confusion with the author of
this web site.
In
Toronto I attended St. Clair Avenue Public School, Annette Street
Junior High, George Harvey Secondary School on Keele Street, and then spent one year (1969-70) at
York University. I moved from Toronto to Winnipeg in 1970 to complete my education at the
University of Manitoba (B.Sc. 1973, M.Sc. 1974, both in Computer Science).
|
St. Clair Avenue Public School (est. 1898?) was delmolished in the 1970s
by a land speculator.
A housing development, built many years later, now occupies the site.
|
Miss Wallington, my 6th grade teacher at St. Clair Avenue Public School, c. 1962
Miss Wallington also taught my father, my brother Allan, and many of my
uncles, aunts and cousins.
|
|
|
Wayne Edgar Cunneyworth - December 1970
University College Residence, University of Manitoba
My first year away from my Toronto home. I had the moustache
since I was about 17, but in 1970 I started to let my hair grow.
I saw baldness in my future, so I decided to let my hair get a bit
shaggy while I still had it.
|
University College Residence
6th floor, 1972
University of Manitoba
The hair got longer as my hippy days blossomed. Can you find me in the
crowd?
|
|
|
Our wedding day
(Yes, that's really us).
Michèle Barnabé (May 5, 1952 - Jan 23, 2004) and I met in October, 1972
in the computer science graduate studies room at the University of
Manitoba. After a wild, intense romance, we were married in Winnipeg
February 10, 1973. Best man: Mark Kon Shing Mak;
Maid of Honour: Josie Y. L. Lau
Michèle's parents: Léo Barnabé / Denise Côté
|
Hong Kong junks, 1974
After we finished our university studies, we embarked on a sub-economy
class circumnavigation of the planet in 1974-1975. We left Winnipeg in a
drive-away car, bound for Vancouver, with 2 one-way tickets to Hong Kong
and $3000 Canadian in cash. We returned to Winnipeg 6 months later, in
another drive-away car from Toronto, tired and broke. But we did it.
|
|
|
Sydney Harbour, Opera House and Harbour Bridge
From Hong Kong we flew to Syndey, NSW, via Manila.
|
|
Wayne about to go scuba diving
Although I had taken scuba courses and done my written exams at the
University of Manitoba in Canada, I never did my open water dive for my
NAUI certification. My first open water dive was in Australia - in an
underwater cave. My second one was a night dive, watching sharks swim
through my flashlight beam. By the time I had my third dive - in open
water during the day - I was feeling pretty comfortable. (Thanks for
the great times, scuba buddy Keir!)
|
The author as Deputy Santa Claus
with Norm Black (age 4)
Farmers Department Store
Penrith, NSW,
Australia, Dec. 1974
The manager told me I was the best department store Santa Claus they
ever had. (I needed the job to help buy our tickets back to Canada).
|
|
|
|
The author and Michèle hitch-hiking in Queensland, 1975
After we earned enough money to buy tickets most of the way home, we took a month to travel the
eastern coast - cheaply, of course. These photos were taken leaving Shute Harbour, Queensland,
February, 1975. Note the flippers for those spontaneous snorkeling opportunities.
|
A friendly street vendor in Bangkok, 1975
We spent One Night in Bangkok, making the Murray Head song by the same
name particularly meaningful to me ever since.
|
Lakshmi Narayan Temple, Delhi
I thoroughly enjoyed Delhi - New and Old. The architecture, the sights,
the sounds, the smells, the overwhelming crowds, the yin and yang of
beauty and horror as seen through such naive Western eyes as mine.
I hope never to forget the powerful lessons that I learned there in my
crash course, "I Know Nothing 101".
|
|
|
Snake charmers in Delhi, 1975
|
Humayun's Tomb, Delhi
|
|
|
The author hard at work
Amoco Petroleum
Calgary, Alberta, 1979
After our round-the-world travels, we moved to Calgary in 1975,
where Michèle and I both found work as computer programmers.
|
Michèle at home, 24 St. SW
Calgary, Alberta, 1979
In 1979, Michèle and I ended our marriage amicably. She later remarried
Robert Mongeau, originally from Florida (of French-Canadian descent) and
moved from Calgary to Winnipeg, then to Stone Mountain, Georgia, USA.
Bob died in September, 2003 and Michèle passed away January 23, 2004
after a valiant battle with cancer.
|
|
During the summer of 1980 I discovered the remote Monashee Mountain community of
Cherryville, BC and bought some raw land on the side of
Cherry Ridge. For the next few years I frequently made the seven-hour drive through the Rockies
to build my log cabin as a weekend retreat.
Restless in Calgary by September of 1981, I left for 9 months of new solo travels across North
America, Europe and North Africa. I visited England, Scotland, Denmark, Sweden, France,
Switzerland, Italy, Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco, Spain and Belgium. (In later years I returned to
Europe many times, adding Holland and Germany to my list of fine memories).
On the road, hitch-hiking in the Sahara, Tunisia, January, 1982
In Tunisia, I travelled with a charming French woman, Bernadette Boyard,
whom I met in Italy. This photo (right) shows the actual road that
we were hitch-hiking on as we entered the Sahara Desert.
|
|
The Great Dunes of Algeria
I continued my travels west into Algeria alone, while Bernadette headed south across the desert
to West Africa. Sand dunes are not everywhere, but this part of the Sahara was definitely like
being in a French Foreign Legion film!
|
The souk (market) and central mosque area in the picturesque town of
Ghardaïa, Algeria
|
|
The author in Chellala Dahrania, Algeria, January, 1982
Hitch-hiking west toward Morocco, I got dropped off at a junction in the
desert, 100 Km from the nearest oasis, with a single lane of asphalt
radiating in three directions to the horizon. I had a wine skin full of
water, half a loaf of bread and six oranges with me, so I figured I was
good for a couple of days. In less than half an hour, a Toyota truck
appeared and three Arab men took me to their village, Chellala Dahrania,
for a night of story-telling and learning (again) how little I know about
my own planet.
|
|
|
Lakbir's family and Ute (2nd from right)
Morocco, February, 1982
This hitch-hiker spent 18 days with German travelers, Sigi and Ute,
driving through Morocco, Spain and France in a Mercedes flatbed truck and
camper. We stayed with "Lakbir" and his family. We learned a lot about
Moroccan police interrogation techniques while in their village - not
first-hand, fortunately!
|
Classic Moroccan highway sign
|
|
|
|
Kadul Elomri and the author
Sigi and Ute introduced me to their friend, Kadul, a guard for Hassan II,
the King of Morocco. Kadul was a very gracious host.
|
I returned to Canada the following spring, 1982, once again broke and in need of work. Soon
after I arrived, I began a rewarding 16 year stint as the western representative of software
company
Data Kinetics Ltd., based in Ottawa. My duties as a
systems consultant and instructor for various software systems took me to many client sites in
North America and Europe and enriched my frequent flyer programs.
In October, 1983 I said goodbye to the city and bought my neighbours' house in Cherryville, BC
- my permanent residence to this day. Since I did very little work in Calgary and always had to
travel to faraway clients anyway, I thought I should live where I felt more at home: in Canada's
fabled "Lotusland". It was in Cherryville that I became one of the early telecommuters. Long
before the Internet made telework so convenient, I was dialing in directly to our Ottawa office
using my new PC. Sharing a rural 4-party telephone line, I had to restrict my modem use to late
hours of the night, but it worked.
From May, 1998 through October, 2000, I worked as an independent software consultant, under the
name
SUMO Software Services. ("We tackle your really
big software problems"). Since October 10, 2000, I have been employed by the Government of
Canada, working primarily from my home in BC. Every few months, however, I still manage to get
to Ottawa for several weeks' appearance "at the office".
I was always fascinated by the Slovak language that I heard through my youth. Although my mother
was born in Toronto, it was her language of communication with her parents. I never learned to
speak more than a few words, unfortunately, but I became acutely aware of the advantages of a
multi-lingual background.
One of my more noteworthy personal achievements came about after meeting a group of young
Québecois adventurers in Calgary in the late 1970s (who remain dear friends to this day):
I learned to speak passable conversational french. It's not the greatest french you will ever
hear, but I have been able to communicate effectively enough. Thanks to extended times at
Pépé's bar and restaurant on 17th Avenue SW, where employees and patrons alike spoke mainly
french, innumerable social occasions with my supportive francophone amis and a few night courses
for good measure, I began my education on a solid foundation. I should add that the old high
school grammar helped a lot, to my amazement. (My ex-wife Michèle was fluently bilingual, but
unfortunately I was too intimidated by her innate linguistic expertise to benefit from it at the
time).
|
With world travels to various french-speaking countries, a pinch of
dedication and some very memorable years in the company of one Jacqueline
Jaquier during the 1980s, I learned to get by in two languages. Did I
say, "memorable years" with Jacqueline? It was among the greatest times
of my life. ("Don't it always seem to go that you don't know what you've
got 'till it's gone" - Joni Mitchell).
|
Now, after many years removed from those positive influences, the
challenge is to maintain my increasingly tenuous facility in the language. Recent
well-intentioned criticism from friends in Québec and France indicates that I have some serious
work to do!
The author at Salmon Glacier, north of Hyder, Alaska, summer of 1994
(around the time he began his genealogy research)
In the years following Jacqueline's return to France, there were a few special ladies in my life.
A legacy of painful failures in this regard, however, prevented me from comitting to any live-in
relationships. In short, I simply carried too much emotional baggage. (Stubbornness is not one
of my finer traits). Then, in the late 1990s, I met Linda.
Linda and bluesman Honeyboy Edwards
Vernon, BC, April, 2004
For about 4 years, through the "turn of the century", I spent a memorable
time living with
Linda (Hensch) Smid, raising horses on Cherry Ridge.
We continue to live somewhat idyllic lives in Cherryville, now in
separate residences on opposite sides of the mountain - sharing our
friendship and our space with deer, coyotes, bears and cougars. (As I
write this, there are two deer standing 3 metres away from me, outside
my window).
|
|
|
Left: house/home/office
Right: my log cabin (higher elevation)
|
|
|
Left: my horse, Chelsea
Right: On Sugar Lake with Yvonne & Richard Hensman, July 2006
(Photo by Richard)
|
|
Rob, Al and Wayne
A rare photo of the three brothers together, Acton, Ontario, 2005
|
|
|
If you're an old friend, a relative doing family history research - or
just someone with a few common interests, feel free to email me and say
hello anytime.
|
And life goes on...
