Garavito Pearl, Holman Justino
December 17th, 2019
It is with a heavy heart that we announce the death of Holman Justino Garavito Pearl on the 17th of December 2019. Holman was born in Bogotá, Colombia, moved to Montreal in 1966, and then to London, Ontario in 1999. His was a rich life, creative and fulfilling. As a teenager Holman worked with his father, an engineer, surveying the terrain for the construction of the Panamerican highway where it traverses the jungle in the south of Colombia. This sparked his lifelong interest in building design and construction and he began a career in the field, working in both engineering and architecture. He worked in mechanical engineering for buildings such as Montreal’s Place Bonaventure, Mirabel airport, and Lester B Pearson Airport Terminal 1 in Toronto among others. He was head of the Model Shop at SNC until 1985, started his own construction company, and designed a well-loved extension to his family’s home. Holman loved learning and creating and dreamt of a better world. He devised development proposals for dense, intergenerational and adaptive affordable community housing, with shops linked by covered streets for underused central London sites. During retirement, he researched and planned for a utopian city of the future. He was an avid collector of items prematurely abandoned and unused, and was preparing a book on wastefulness in contemporary society. In 1961 he met his future wife, Joyce Bruhn, in Bogotá. They married in 1967 and had five children: Keb, whose partner is José Artur Santos Alves; Nyd; Loe, married to Sami Sidhoum, parents of Amélie, Mélodie, and Angel (July-Nov 2006); Rem, married to Abigail Meisterman; and Eci, married to Alfredo Ramírez Trujillo, parents of Teo and Elu. He is survived by his sister María Helena and his brothers Roswell, Hermógenes, Justino and Patricio. Besides design, Holman’s passions included drawing, graphic design, photography, and woodworking. However, his greatest love was genealogy. He believed it was a way of keeping the memory of those who have gone before us alive and he encouraged everyone he met to start a family tree. His family promises to keep his memory alive as long as they live. Joyce and his five children were by his side, at home, when he died. A memorial service will be held on Saturday, December 21st 2019 from 10am-12pm, at Mount Pleasant Chapel in London, 303 Riverside Drive. Donations to Doctors Without Borders (MSF) are gratefully acknowledged.
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Our most sincere sympathies to the family and friends of Garavito Pearl Holman Justino December 17th 2019..
Death notice for the town of: London, Province: Ontario