Yes, it is true. I am in my 73rd year. I was born in 1932 during the early years of the great Depression in Montreal. These tough times, the happiest days of my life, resulted in an unpublished book, A Little Boy's Memories of Mount Royal: Recollections of growing up in Montreal. To read the prologue to this book on-line, see A Little Boy's Memories.

Baby Bill on the right less than one year old

Aeronautical engineer, 1944

I went on to high school, quit in grade 11 and went to work as an ironworker. I worked in a Mohawk riveting gang traveling all around Quebec, erecting buildings and bridges. My job was to catch the red-hot rivets while standing on the steel framework high above the ground. I eventually went back to school and acquired my Senior Matriculation (1st year university in those Quebec days).

I then went to work for Dominion Bridge Co. Limited, Canada's largest steel fabricator at the time. I took up racing motorcycles for a few years, but then married Cherie, nee Kane in 1957, settled down, had a family of four children, and went to university at night to acquire my first undergraduate degree.

With the same firm, I spent the next number of years in engineering, first designing and then running engineering projects. In time, they kicked me upstairs into management. The précis story of my subsequent work career began when I left that firm after twenty-five years to become a manager of operations for a number of large companies building railway cars and farm equipment in Nova Scotia and Winnipeg. This resulted in a vice-presidency of manufacturing of a Canadian Fortune 100 company. A vice-presidency and general manager's position followed for a large Toronto manufacturer of fasteners. My first marriage ended in 1985. I married my present wife Carolyn Swadron in 1990. I spent the last ten years of my working life as a consultant for various manufacturing software products-an emerging discipline in the manufacturing world.

After retiring, I returned to university-solely for me. I always had an interest in people, and in particular my first on-the-job teachers, the Mohawks. I explored social cultural anthropology, but archaeology won out. My area of interest includes the combination of archaeology and Aboriginal studies. Here I hope to contribute to the archaeological record, and in particular in pre-Columbian Ontario. Presently, my expectations are to expand our knowledge and understanding of the Iroquoian longhouse using structural engineering technology.

Outside of school, my interests revolve around my wife, family, friends, and hobbies such as gardening, woodworking, and model trains. I was an ardent racing and cruising sailor but we sold our boat a few years ago. My eldest son and I are now constructing a replica of his soapbox-racing car of the 1960s.

I may not be the oldest student in the University of Toronto, but to my knowledge, I hold the record for the oldest, active, graduate archaeology student to date.

To learn more about my son the artist, see Bill Wrigley Jr.

To learn more about my eldest daughter, see Wrigley-Thomas

Home page of Bill Wrigley

Wednesday, January 19, 2005