Our cherished and admired Bruce Pardy peacefully passed away at home on Wednesday, March 9th, 2022. Bruce was born in Little Harbour, New World Island, NL, the much-loved husband of Cynthia (Janes) and son of the late Norman and Violet (Ivany) Pardy.
Leaving to mourn his loss are his proud children Rick, Jane (Jack Lavers), Keith (Caroline); daughter-in-law Jacqueline Sheppard, grandchildren David Bruce, Marc, William (Joanne), Donald, David John, Jennifer, Nicola and Natalie; and by his sister Peggy (Jack Taite). He was predeceased by his son Randell, sisters Gladys, Suzie, Audrey and Bertha (William Schroeder) and brother Richard (Julie).
Norman Victor “Bruce” Pardy, or Daddy Bruce to his eight grandchildren, moved to St. John’s at the age of two to a small house on Pleasant Street.
By his own admission, he was a shy boy. As a child, he loved the outdoors and first learned to swim on the sandy riverbanks near Mount Pearl in the summers. In school, the unusual combination of math and history came naturally to him — an early indication of the intellectual curiosity that defined him and the fascinations he carried with him through life.
Bruce started his university education at Memorial College where he studied preengineering and completed his undergraduate engineering degree at Nova Scotia Technical College in 1958. It was at Memorial where he met the love of his life, Cynthia. Behind the auditorium at Memorial College, they stole their first kisses in between classes.
Bruce qualified for his esteemed Association of the Engineers of the Province of Newfoundland in 1960. After graduating, Bruce became the first engineer on staff at Newfoundland Engineering and Construction Company. He forged a bold path within the engineering world, helping to build some of Newfoundland’s most iconic civil engineering projects including St. John’s City Hall, the original buildings at Memorial University, Elisabeth Towers, and the Confederation Building.
His career afforded him the opportunity to live abroad on assignment in Sri Lanka for a year with his family. This eventually led to the formation of Project Management and Design Ltd. Subsequently, Bruce’s creativity and personality brought together five local engineering companies to form the BAE-SNC Group in the early 1980s.
His company’s success brought prosperity and Bruce routinely practiced generosity to others. He lifted others as he climbed. No one was greater testament to this than his trusted lieutenant and confidante Elizabeth Thistle who joined the team in 1972 and then worked alongside him for the next 50 years. Ultimately, he mentored hundreds of people throughout his life.
One of his proudest professional accomplishments was serving on the Canadian Royal Commission for one of Newfoundland’s greatest sorrows – the Ocean Ranger disaster. His honorable work with that committee transformed the safety standards of the offshore drilling industry, and crystallized Bruce’s purpose as an engineer and as a Newfoundlander.
For a man who had an accomplished career as a civil engineer, building some of the foundations of Newfoundland’s growth, the thing he was most proud of building was his family. He was as tender-hearted as they come. A devoted, loving, and patient husband, Bruce cared for his wife, Cynthia with an intensity one can only know from decades spent side-by-side with a life partner. They were a devastatingly handsome couple, always dressed to the nines for cocktail hour and hosting their friends and family for dinner parties at home. On summer evenings, they loved to share cold beer out on their deck together, tossing out peanuts for the black-capped chickadees.
Bruce and Cynthia always said that the joy of starting their family young was that they got to grow up together, alongside their children. Perhaps it wasn’t the easiest way to do life, but that’s the way it went. Throughout the years, they’ve collected dozens of faded film photos from their raucous years waterskiing and fishing in Deer Park with Rick, Randy, Jane, and Keith. Deer Park was home to some of his happiest times with family and friends, particularly Donny Fagan, Albert Hickman, John Cahill, Jim Gushue, and Bill Case.
Another benefit of starting their family early was that Bruce and Cynthia had the chance to truly and completely relish being grandparents. Grandfather was a role which Bruce took on with the same passion and dedication he did as an engineer, a husband, and a father. To his grandchildren, in their youth, Daddy Bruce was a magician. He bewildered his grandkids for hours by making cards disappear into thin air and willing corks from the tops of wine bottles to shapeshift between his hands at the dinner table. At Christmastime, Bruce and Cynthia’s home at Waterford Avenue transformed into a snow globe of music, meals, laughter, and other festive delights. Daddy Bruce could often be found sitting by the tree with one of his grandchildren, sharing in the wonder of the electric toy trains humming around the tree on Christmas Eve.
Bruce was a teacher and a mentor to his children and grandchildren alike. He infused in his family a knack for squinting at the status quo — everyone who knew Bruce knew his furrowed brow. But Bruce wasn’t perfect. He could be stubborn, obsessive, and, if you ask his children, he had a hard time letting go. But it was also these qualities which made his connection to others deep and intense, his love of knowledge passionate, and his penchant for a long conversation unparalleled. Sometimes when Bruce became engaged in a lively conversation, he’d lean back and look upwards, as if the answer were somewhere up in the sky.
Here was a man who was always talking about history. But his life is a testament to the fact that he made his own indelible mark on it. He will be remembered for his capacity to translate his imagination into physical forms that defined the landscape of Newfoundland. He will be missed for his warm sense of humour and his heart that knew true and eternal love. He will be known forever as a man with the most voracious mind and gentle soul.
Bruce’s curiosity defined him. And while he lived his life immersed in the vast wide world and the cosmos above, he lived and died a proud Newfoundlander. May he rest in power and live on in our hearts.
Visitation will take place at Carnell’s Funeral Home, 329 Freshwater Road on Sunday, March 13 from 2-4 and 7-9 p.m. Funeral service will be held from Gower Street United Church on Monday, March 14 at 11 a.m. The service will be live streamed for those who are unable to attend. The link will be available shortly.
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July 6 1933 to March 9 2022
Nos plus sincères sympathies à la famille et aux amis de Bruce Pardy July 6 1933 to March 9 2022..
Décès pour la Ville: St-John’s, Province: T-N