James Osmond Torrens

Among those mourning his passing are Dianne Davies, his partner of 26 years, Jim’s three children, Ken (Colleen McEnery), Ron (Andrea Lanthier) and Lee-Anne (David Abramson), who all did their part to make his final chapter of life comfortable, and his grandchildren, Brett, Caitlyn, Patrick, Mitchell, Michael (Evelyn Anderson), Lauren and Sam.

Jim lived life on his own terms, knew exactly who he was and what defined his moral code. The example he set will continue to have a powerful influence on his family. A successful executive at Dupont for many years, he did not think twice about quitting to care for his terminally ill wife of 34 years, Doreen (nee Johnson, d. 1987). After Doreen’s passing, Jim started a new career with Murray Axsmith helping executives and managers affected by restructuring.

A self-professed “Toronto city boy” whose Irish Protestant heritage prevented him from turning down a glass of Pinot Grigio or CC rye, he had the engineering blood that runs thick in the Torrens family. Jim was among the post-WWII wave of University of Toronto grads (MechEng 1951), passing these genes on to his geophysical engineering son and engineering physics grandson. Jim was curious, competent and up-to-date on “anything science” and did not suffer fools. God help the Canadian Tire employee who did not know the right part for the device Jim needed fixed. This sharpness also made it difficult to keep a secret from Jim. Surrounded by family of all ages, he calmly pulled a long speech from his jacket at his meticulously-planned “surprise” 80th birthday dinner.

Jim was a 1950s-style family man. Bouncing around between Toronto, Kingston and Montreal as the kids grew up, there was still plenty of time for family bonding and adventurous travel. When the kids were younger, there were camper trips across Canada, and the U.S. Cigarette smoke-filled rides every winter weekend to ski at Mont Blanc (Quebec) were de rigeur. Jim dreamed of sailing and spent many summers touring Lake Ontario and Georgian Bay with Doreen on his Tanzer 7.5. Trips around the world included stops in China, Australia, Egypt and Brazil. Later, this gave way to a long string of ocean cruises with Dianne “anywhere and everywhere”.

Jim remained equal parts quick-witted, cantankerous and opinionated almost until his passing. A power failure at his seniors’ home irritated Jim because he knew exactly how to match the voltage and phase to restart the electricity but had to wait instead for the electrician to arrive. He also knew in detail the innovations that led to huge waits for the extended cargo train with two locomotives at the nearby level crossing.

Jim lived by example and did not hesitate to ruffle feathers to do what he believed was the right thing. He abhorred ostentatious displays of wealth, but admired when his kids were “house poor”. When it mattered, Jim was tolerant, willing to accept a randomly-selected university degree choice out of the hat for one of his kids, or an “outside the faith” marriage choice by another (“Bring on the Bar Mitzvahs”). Jim was still 100% sharp almost to the very end and when he saw that time was running short tried his best to pass on his life lessons to his grandkids. The pain of his physical passing will be moderated by the knowledge that his wisdom will live on in future generations, both existing and still to come.