William "Bill" James Fitt

Bill will be forever loved by his wife Barbara, sons Charles (Lana) and Gordon (Josh), grandchildren Mackenzie (Brady), Jackson, Ruthie and Noa, and great-grandchildren Charlie and Carter.  

Bill was born on a dairy farm just outside of Edmonton to parents Margaret and Charlie. The farm was part of his grandmother’s Scrip and would eventually become what is now Sherwood Park.  Bill enjoyed the farm and fishing in some of the local lakes, but he would often remark “on the dairy the cows had power in the barns, but we didn’t in the house”.  When Bill was still a boy, his dad had grown tired of the Alberta winters, and so they sold the dairy and bought an auto court on the ocean in Mill Bay.  Bill and his sister Joan loved the island, and many memories were made there.  

As he grew, he fell in love with music and cars.  He played guitar in many bands and fell in with the local race car group.  He would go on to attend races all over the island.  His interest in mechanics and physics made him very handy to have in the pits.  Bill’s heroes were Chet Atkins, Buck Owen’s and an ominous character who owned the local scrap yard/garage named Blacky.  When Bill was a teenager a big shot lawyer from the city, who was one of the regulars at the auto court, gifted him a beautiful cedar strip canoe, and there are many stories of catching salmon from that boat. After graduation Bill joined the Airforce where he helped to develop and produce radar equipment in some of the first computers ever made.  When they were little, Bill would tell his boys “if we had to build that calculator you’re using out of tubes it would fill this entire house!”  He was stationed in Moose Factory and Biloxi and got to see lots of the world.  He was in an Airforce band that would play dances and travel to play gigs.  

Bill eventually moved back to the Island where he met the love of his life, Barbara in the Maple Bay Pub.  It wasn’t long before they were married and had two boys, Charles and Gordon.  Bill would go on to do many things, he was a sales rep for Auto-marine Electric, he had his own shop called Caribou Auto-Electric, but most of all, he was a dad and a husband, and eventually a grandpa and great grandpa.  There were countless fishing trips, and camping adventures with so many great friends and family.  Bill was one of the kindest men of his generation. He found the works of Lobsang Rampa when he was young and encouraged everyone to read them as Buddhism really resonated with him.  He always believed in the power of the mind, that we are all capable of anything we believe we can accomplish and that was an amazing way to grow up.  In the last few years proceeding his passing he would often comment about how lucky he was to have Barb and the life he lived. While that is definitely true, we were also the lucky ones to have had him in our lives. Bill will be forever loved and missed by his family and his lifetime friends. 

“See you a week from Tuesday”.