As a small child in England, Tom Pettingill was given a pair of skates. They were the type of skates that required the blade literally being screwed into the bottom of a boot.
It started a life-long fascination with skating. Pettingill was carrying his skates, returning from a rink, when he met his wife Jutta at a bus stop in South Africa, where he was working at the time.
The couple was married in Germany in 1954 and the following year, they emigrated to Canada.
“I have a sneaking suspicion that he chose Canada over Australia because it had more skating rinks,” said his daughter Mary Churchill, the eldest of the couple’s seven children.
It would be a decision that would benefit Canada and Norval for years to come. Shortly after, the couple purchased an 18-acre property near Norval. He designed and built their house, planted thousands of trees and an orchard and later, well ahead of his time, installed a ground source heat pump that captured heat from the ground to heat the house.
“He loved the creative process of building and molding his own place,” Churchill said.
Pettingill quickly became ingrained in the community. And of course, one of his first activities was helping create a community skating rink behind the Norval school.
Pettingill continued skating twice a week until he was 93. He said staying active was a big reason for living until he was 100. (There may have been some genetics at work as well. His twin brother, Jack, lived to 99, just 12 weeks shy of his 100th birthday.)
Pettingill, a founding member of the Norval Community Association, died Monday at home “at the age of 100.7076 years,” his obituary read. “Tom was always very precise!”
Precision came with the territory. Pettingill was a professional engineer who served as an officer with the Royal Navy in the Second World War.
By the time he and Jutta moved to Canada he had already established himself as a talented engineer. It took him less than 10 days to find a job with Orenda Engines, where he worked on turbine engine development for the Avro Arrow. When the project was abruptly cancelled by the Canadian government, Pettingill was among the first hired back by Orenda’s parent company, Hawker Siddeley.
He stayed with the company until the early 1970s, when he started teaching engineering at Sheridan College.
“He was a natural born teacher,” Churchill said. “He was always good at explaining things.”
He recited complex formulas and equations with ease.
“Dad used to be faster with a slide rule than his students with the first generation hand held calculators,” she said.
He was a demanding teacher, but the respect for him was evident with many of his students, some from four decades earlier, coming to his 100th birthday party earlier this year.
His meticulous work is also on display in Norval. Pettingill did all the calculations to help create the analemmatic sundial in the Lucy Maud Montgomery Garden. He also planted 1,000 daffodils that line the streets leading into Norval.
At his 100th birthday party, Norval Community Association president Kathy Gastle said Pettingill “has been engaged in every single project in Norval for the past 50 years.”
He also lent his time and talents to organizations like Acclaim Health and the CNIB, volunteering for each for more than 15 years. He served as president of the Georgetown Figure Skating Club and donated an award for the most improved intermediate skater.
“He really rose to the occasion to do his duty,” Churchill said. “He always wanted to do the right thing."
Pettingill is survived by his children Mary, Becky (Jim), Sonja, Cria (Lloyd), Helen, John (Tinla), 11 grandchildren and six great grandchildren. He is predeceased by his wife Jutta and his son Tim.
Visitations will be held at Jones Funeral Home on Thursday, Nov. 21 from 2 to 4 p.m. and 6 to 8 p.m. A funeral mass will be held at Holy Cross Church in Georgetown on Friday, Nov. 22 at 10:30 a.m., with a reception to follow from 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m.
