Denis Reginald Thornton
January 15, 1938 - February 5, 2022
Funeral Home Wojcik's Funeral Chapel
Rev. Denis Thornton
1938-2022
Our father Denis Thornton passed away from bladder cancer on February 5, 2022. Born in 1938 in Cookstown, Northern Ireland to George Thornton and Annie FitzGerald, at the age of 19 Dad emigrated to Winnipeg where he studied at United College and Winnipeg Bible College. There his powerful Ulster accent soon won him the heart and hand of Kathryn Weibe, a farm girl from the Carberry Hills whose large family became his, and with whom he shared a long and happy marriage until her own death from cancer last August.
Dad had many occupations, but his real calling was as a minister in the United Church, in which he served congregations from God’s Lake Narrows, Manitoba to Greenfield Park, Quebec. After their retirement Dad took Mom back to Northern Ireland for more than a decade before they returned to Winnipeg in 2007 to be closer to their family. In his retirement here Dad found great friends and fulfillment writing and directing plays for the Marketplace Players with his old friend Brett Buckingham.
He is survived by his sons Evan (Sylvia), Duncan (Brenda), and Tom (Shannon), and his grandchildren Petra, Evana, Sebastian, and Katya, as well as great-grandson William. He is also mourned by his sister Sylvia and brother Robert (Janet) and his many nieces, nephews, and assorted relations.
Dad was as reserved as most men of his generation, but he was a father who was glad to drive a hundred miles on a winter night to read his sons a chapter before bed; and when Mom’s career took her away from home, he was a father who welcomed the role of main caregiver. In time he was also a doting “Poppy” to his grandchildren and great-grandson.
In lieu of flowers, please consider asking your MLA to increase the salaries of the dedicated but underpaid health care aides of the Winnipeg Regional Health Authority, who made it possible for Dad to stay home until almost the last day of his life.
We loved Dad for all he gave us, and not least because “he knew how to keep Christmas well, if any man alive possessed the knowledge.”