Edward "Len" Leonard Doerksen

Edward Leonard Doerksen was the 9th of 10 children born to Heinrich and Katarina Doerksen (nee Klippenstein) on the family farm, in the Rural Municipality of Thompson, south of Miami Manitoba, near the ghost town of Nelsonville, and near what was known as the Dunston Community.

Edward Leonard was named after King Edward, however when the King abdicated the throne to marry Wallis Simpson, Grandma Doerksen then began to call him by his second name, Len which stayed for the remainder of his life.

Len attended Lloyd George School which was a one room schoolhouse. At one point he had a childhood crush on his schoolteacher. When she announced that she was engaged and would not be returning to be his schoolteacher, Len felt like he would no longer carry on with school.

After working on the family farm for several more years, Len made his way into Winnipeg to begin working life, staying with his only sister Kay. He worked delivering food, shackling hogs at Burns Meats (the next guy slit their throats), selling life insurance and several other jobs. Len was ahead of the curve in that he rode his bike year-round. It wasn’t for health or for the environment, mind you, it was because he didn’t have funds to buy a car.

In his early teens, while still living on the farm he attended the Pentecostal Church in Morden when Pastor Clinton Cairns was there. At the end of one service, Elmo Shareski asked Len if he wanted to give his life to Jesus. He went forward to the altar that night which began his 70 + year journey with Jesus.

Len certainly gave his life and his heart to Jesus that night. He pursued serving and living for God his entire life, whether it was singing in the Calvary Temple Choir, where he met his sweetheart Madelene Colburn in 1955 or going to start the Weston Gospel Church plant (now Cross Church on Logan). A few years after Weston, and just before they married, Pastor H. H. Barber asked them to help start the Charleswood Sunday School which birthed Charleswood Gospel Temple (now Grace Community Church on the west perimeter by Roblin). Singing continued as a part of their lives with Madelene on the piano, organ or singing and Len doing solos and duets. Gospel favourites by the Gaithers, Slaughters, Rambos and anything from a Singspiration book were in the repertoire.

Just a few years after marriage, Len and Madelene were asked to move to Regina to sell imported food products. They rented out their first new home at 625 Greene Avenue and headed out west. However, the Defin-buck - what the value of the Canadian dollar became known under John Diefenbaker – quickly deflated the Canadian dollar and increased the value of imported goods. Because of this, Len found himself out of work. An advertisement for Liquid Air was looking for a welding products salesman. Len had been around welding his entire life but had never actually welded. That didn’t stop him and a new career path was birthed. During their time in Regina, Janelle was born. Liquid Air was able to transfer them back to Winnipeg much to the delight of many Doerksen brothers and relatives who could now obtain their welding supplies much easier. Craig was born in Winnipeg in 1966. During all this Len had time to be a great father and still move ahead in his career.

During his tenure with Liquid Air, he was introduced to the field of bottled and piped medical gasses - oxygen, nitrous oxide, medical air, medical vacuum and others. He not only sold the gasses and the piping system components, he would help the installers check that the systems were installed correctly. Before there were oxygen analyzers and purity samples, Len used cigarettes to test that the piped gasses weren’t mislabeled: a quick burning cigarette meant oxygen! Then in 1974 it was discovered that 20 people died in an operating room in a Sudbury, Ontario hospital because the oxygen and nitrous oxide piping and outlets were mixed up and mis-labelled. This created a call for independent medical gas testing and in 1975 Doerksen Medigas Systems was incorporated to serve Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Northwest Ontario. Len was a pioneer in medical gas systems testing and innovative designs providing input to the Canadian Standards Association Standards on medical gasses for the rest of his career.

During the years at Liquid Air and Doerksen Medigas, Len and Madelene continued their life-long involvement with church and became engaged in international relief and development. In the early 1970s Len became the volunteer Manitoba Director for World Vision. This meant showing movies and slide shows across Manitoba in community centres and churches. There was always an extra phone in the house to handle the World Vision work. Even the downstairs ping pong table got converted into a central mailing area for many planned Famine fundraising events. Len and Madelene had sponsored an orphaned girl through World Vision in the 1960’s. Once she aged out of the program, two boys were sponsored. In 1973, a trip to Asia allowed them to visit Korea and see all three of their sponsored children. Revisiting this on Super8 film was priceless. A prior trip in 1971 to the Middle East was also well documented and spliced together by Len into a silent film classic.

Len served on the Charleswood and Calvary Temple church boards, as well as the board of Central Pentecostal College (now Horizon College). He was also part of establishing the Manitoba Council for International Cooperation through his involvement with World Vision, Food for the Hungry, Living Bibles International, Haggai Institute and It’s a New Day TV ministry.

Len engaged the entire family in all he did. The trailer, whether parked at Manhattan Beach or Clear Lake for 3 or 4 weeks each summer, was our family vacation’s home base, but was also a work home base for Len as he went to hospitals in the area. Winter vacations consisted of a few days at the Holiday Inn in International Falls, Minnesota, while dad went to hospitals in Fort Frances, Atikokan, Dryden and Sioux Lookout. Len was also a great dad - ensuring that Janelle and Craig got homework and school projects done, keeping bikes in shape and teaching them about honesty, integrity, love, and hard work.

The business outgrew the basement and a new two car garage at 625 Greene Avenue was converted into an office / warehouse for tools and respiratory therapy equipment, which he sold as well. Non-family employees were needed to keep up with the work in Minnesota and Alberta. By then the name had changed to Doerksen Medical Gas Systems, since the name Medigas had been registered nationally and stole that identity. By 1981, there was a move to a new house in North Kildonan and a stand-alone office on Henderson Hwy. In 1984 a former colleague in Ontario passed away and Doerksen Medical Gas expanded fully into Ontario, and shortly after into Vancouver.

Len was able to mentor many business colleagues and staff over the years – Bill Stanley, Gemmy May, Joseph Ryan, Frank DePaepe, Don Bushuk and Bob Kroening, as well as Janelle and Craig who spent time in the family business.

Len and Madelene became empty nesters within 6 months in 1987 as Janelle married Brent Peterson in February and Craig married Cathy Griggs in August. Their final home, and longest owned home, was the condo at South of the Border in St Norbert. The condo served their work and pleasure travel lifestyle well for those 27 years. They also relocated their office to the It’s a New Day media ministry building on Chevrier Blvd.

They continued to support their church and many relief and development ministries, nurturing a special relationship with Larry Ward whom they met through World Vision in the 1970’s. Larry established Food for the Hungry and eventually Viet Aid that provided schooling, shelter and food for orphans in Vietnam. If you met Len and hadn’t heard of Larry, you were sure to get one of Larry’s books to pull at your heartstrings as it had Len’s.

Somewhere along the way Madelene wanted to honour Len for everything he had learned along life’s way, commonly known as the school of hard knocks. Len did get his grade 12 graduation equivalent diploma (GED) in 1972. It turns out a grade 9 drop out can get a university degree. Madelene found the University of Hard Knocks in West Virginia and in 1985, after an application and vetting process, Len received his degree!

Len was always there for his grandchildren at special church events, school music concerts, baton, football and basketball games and birthday gatherings. This kept them all close. As Len and Madelene had provided for their own children’s university tuition, they continued a similar blessing by setting up Registered Education Savings Plans for their four grandchildren.

After 25 years, Doerksen Medical Gas Systems was sold into 3 parts: Eastern Canada was sold to Frank DePaepe; Western Canada was sold to a former competitor from Alberta and; the US business was sold to engineer Bob Kroening from Ellerbe Architects and Engineers in Minneapolis, whom Len had worked with at Mayo Clinic projects.

In retirement, the condo served as home base for Len and Madelene while a motor home allowed travel to Arizona for 6 months and then to Manhattan Beach for the summer. After two years in Mesa, Arizona, they purchased a park model trailer there and a park model trailer for Manhattan. No more RVing. Two Buicks satisfied the mobile aspects. While in Arizona they were able to continue volunteering, this time at an orphanage called Sunshine Acres. Dad got to tend to the horses for the 4H program. He was in his element. It was like he had never left the farm those 50 plus years earlier.

While dementia began to show in Lens memory in 2015 it never touched or changed his care, compassion and love for people. He was able to know his family and love his God. When visits led to Scripture reading, hymns or gospel songs, Len’s mind was in alignment with the Spirit of God within him. Words to songs, meaningful scriptures and the ability to pray and praise the God he had known since his teens came without hesitation.

Video tribute on a private YouTube at https://bit.ly/LenDoerksen (please cut and paste the link into a new browser window if the link does not work.)