For many who have been involved in the Eganville Royal Canadian Legion, Alex Kowbel was known as one of the last surviving veterans of the Second World War.
As he surpassed milestone after milestone, he never ceased to be willing to share his memories, have a few laughs and show the importance of enjoying life to the fullest.
After suffering a fall in 2019, he had been a resident of Perley Health, a retirement home in Ottawa for veterans where he continued an active social life, including exercise classes and playing cards.
He died on Saturday at the age of 101.
Eganville Legion Branch 353 treasurer Claude Jeannotte said Kowbel was the oldest active member of the legion and he continued to be a member even after moving to Ottawa.
“He was adopted by the Ladies Auxiliary,” Jeannotte noted.
Kowbel was also quite a character, he recalled. One time, when Cheryl Gallant came to the legion, he kissed her and she has never forgotten that, Jeannotte noted.
“I know every time I meet Cheryl Gallant, she thinks I am Alex and I am the one who tried to kiss her,” he joked.
Last year, Jeannotte visited Kowbel on his 100th birthday and presented him with his 75-year pin.
“We wore masks, but he knew exactly who we were. His mind was good," he added.
Kowbel had a presence, Jeannotte said.
“He knew how the land lay around him. He was quite somebody,” he said.
A positive individual who was known to enjoy life to its fullest, Kowbel lived by a philosophy he adopted many years ago which he referred to as “luxury of integrity.”
“It basically says, be truthful to yourself and don’t deviate from what you think is the truth. But it will cost you,” he said in a 2015 interview with the Eganville Leader. “That’s the luxury part of it. I think in the military it cost me some promotions and friendships.”
He spoke with the Leader about his life many times, including when he turned 95.
Born in 1922 in Melville, Sask., his father had emigrated from Ukraine during the Russian Revolution.
As a young man, he wanted to enlist in the military when the Second World War began, but at five-foot-four and 110 pounds, he was considered too slight by the recruiting officer. However, his typing skills saw him enlisted and he would spend the next three decades in the Canadian military.
He survived the Second World War and also the Korean War, although he had a close brush with death during a training exercise following the war when his military glider crashed in Manitoba.
Discharged as a staff sergeant in 1945, Veterans Affairs offered to help Kowbel complete his high school and university education in a plan similar to the more well known GI Bill the Americans offered their veterans.
During the summer of 1946, he went to the Canadian Officers Training Corps in Camp Borden. After graduation, he was offered, and accepted, a commission as first lieutenant and the following year, after surviving all of the horrors of war, he almost lost his life in a training exercise.
It happened at his first posting at Rivers, Man., near Winnipeg. Because of the large number of gliders that were shot down during the war, he was flying gliders to see if improvements were possible to make better their safety record.
In those days, 10 men could be seated in a glider and the practice was to release the aircraft from a regular plane and drift down until it reached a height of 90 feet from the ground. Then it would deploy a parachute for a soft landing.
But on that day the chute didn’t work and the glider, with all 10 passengers, crashed to the tarmac. Kowbel suffered a broken back.
Lt. Kowbel returned to full service in 1948 and served until 1971. In between, he was seconded to the British Army for the Korean War as a staff officer, moving U.K. ships in and out of the country.
He had also married the former Frances Emily Matthews of Barrie and they had four children – Jim, Tom, David and Susan. Sadly, Fran passed away in 1960 from a brain tumour.
In 1967, then-Minister of Defence Paul Helyer began the process of amalgamating the three branches of the military — army, navy and air force — and Kowbel was named the first secretary for material command, working alongside General Rothschild doing the administrative work and planning for the amalgamation.
Then, in 1971, the federal government set up the Environmental Protection Service (EPS). Kowbel was well known for his work on the amalgamation process he was working on in the military and the government wanted his expertise to help set up the EPS.
The EPS was formed for the purpose of eliminating unintended occurrences of chemicals into the environment. It involved attending international conferences in France with representatives from other countries about air and water pollution and solid waste management.
Recently, Kowbel established a business scholarship at the Edwards School of Business at the University of Saskatchewan for students who may be following in his footsteps with a career in the Armed Forces.
After occasional visits to a friend’s cottage on Lake Clear in the 1970s, Kowbel purchased the property in 1978 and then when a nice home came up for sale in Foymount in 1982 he moved to the former Air Force base.
He also purchased a small home in Hawaii and spent more than 30 winters there into his 90s.
Debbi Christinck is a Local Journalism Initiative reporter with the Eganville Leader. LJI is a federally funded program.
