Kenneth E. Neal

At 6 months old, Ken's father was called away to war and subsequently passed away as a POW in the south pacific. His father's brother, also named Ken, then married Kay and raised Ken as his own. Ken's brother Richard was born to them in 1950 and pre-deceased Ken in 2005.

Following the war in the early 50's, Ken's dad Ken was posted first to Halifax and then to Victoria where they settled and remained. Ken graduated from Victoria's former Mt View High School in 1958 and married his high school sweetheart Christine Wills six days before his 19th birthday. Together they had 3 children, Ron, Bev and Ken Jnr and spent the children's early years living in Saanich's Glanford area and then Cordova Bay. Ken then lived in Sidney and North Saanich for the remainder of his life, first with his second wife Bobbie Stubbington (and step son Avie) and then since 1988 with his third wife Arlene Atherton in the Ardmore area home he built in the mid 70's.

Ken attended UVIC and worked for Safeway out of high school for 25 years including many years managing the former Hillside Mall location before they downsized and he transitioned into a successful 22 year career in real estate sales, building and development. He also was involved with Herbalife on the ground floor in Canada. You'll never know a harder worker or softer spoken nice guy than Ken. He enjoyed many activities and interests and was quite an athlete. As a young man his hobbies included woodworking, model railways and slot race cars. He enjoyed skiing, golf, motorcycles, ice hockey, bowling, trap shooting and played men's fastball too. He loved the outdoors, camping, fishing and hunting too, but his biggest passion was his gardening, especially his dahlias! He really enjoyed his hummingbirds too! In his later years, he and Arlene enjoyed down time (if you can call it that) at the "Garage" their home away from home, carriage house in his Cobble Hill area Fern Ridge Estates development. They also finally started to take travel breaks and enjoyed many cruises together plus went on an adventurous journey in 2016 with his son Ron to the island of Ambon in Indonesia to find and visit his father's gravesite.

He will be greatly missed by Arlene, his partner attached at the hip for the past 33 years, son Ron (Lorraine), daughter Bev (Stan Dorma), son Ken Jnr (Kari), step son Richard Silver (Carla), step daughter Corrine Hetherington (Rick), step son Kevin Heide (Keri), step son Paul Heide (Trish), grandkids Cameron, Justin, Taunya (Troy Jardine), Emily (Hector Uriostegui), Kayden, Michelle (Andrew Frueh), Krystyna, Sarah (Shayden) Jenn, Sabrina, Maria, Josh, Hayley, Hannah, McKinley and great grand children Charlotte, Jaxson, Blake and Sawyer. Ken was also predeceased by grandson Kayo Dorma and step son Avie Stubbington.