Robert Russell
July 20, 1932 – July 15, 2021
We are thankful for the life of Robert Russell. Robert passed away in Toronto a few days before his 89th birthday. He leaves behind his sister Agnes Wood (aged 100 years), his children Janice (Richard), Michael, Sandra and their mother Anne, grandchildren Katie, Sarah and Max, Ryan, as well as many nieces and nephews and extended family across Canada and the United States. He was pre-deceased by, and is now reunited with, his mother Alice and father John as well as his older brothers John, Basil, Leslie and Thomas.
Born in Hamilton, Ontario and raised on a farm in northern Ontario’s Savard Township, Robert faced many challenges in his life. Born with a congenital hearing loss, coupled with what would eventually take his eyesight, retinitis pigmentosa, he lost his father at the age of six. After graduating from grade 10 in Savard, he moved to Toronto to help support his family and complete secondary school. He met and married Anne Russell, née Ryva, in Toronto and together they raised their family in Mississauga.
With limited formal education, he demonstrated a keen intellect, and developed a career in the emerging IT industry as a computer programmer, working on Canada’s first corporately owned computer at Ford Motor Company in Oakville, and at some of Mississauga’s first Information Technology corporations like UNIVAC and Control Data. He predicted many of the ways technology would innovate and affects us today. Providing for his family in the face of his declining vision and hearing, he turned to real estate and stock market investing.
Robert was a man of utmost integrity and morality who cared deeply for his family and others. He was a wonderful son, taking care of his widowed mother throughout her life, a loving brother, husband, father and father-in-law, and a deeply beloved grandfather.
We will miss his eccentric sense of humour, his stubborn, fiery personality (which some of us share), his advice, his incessant care for and interest in the lives of his children and grandchildren, his love of animals, and his thoughtfulness for others.
We extend heartfelt gratitude to Lyssa Barrington and many other CNIB intervenors who provided friendship and support to Robert over many years.
Dad lives on in all of those who love him.
A contribution to the CNIB Deaf Blind Community Services through the CNIB Foundation in memory of Robert Russell would be very much appreciated. Those who are so inclined may cut and paste the following web address:
cnib.donorportal.ca/Donation/Donation.aspx?F=1841&T=GENER&L=en-CA&G=345&NFP=1®ion=gta
Read Less
Thursday July 15th 2021
Nos plus sincères sympathies à la famille et aux amis de Robert Russell Thursday July 15th 2021..
skinner and middlebrook funeral home
Décès pour la Ville:Mississauga, Province: Ontario