Rae & some of her gang; with Alex (his mother in hiding) watching what he had put on the screen …. ; Heather doubting what her grandfather is trying to convince her of.  And for those of you not lucky enough to have been there, you see the beautiful log house, “The Rectory”, that Jessica & Don found for all 27 of us who came to Mt. Ste. Anne.

Owen shows the beautiful bottom 1/3 of this majestic fireplace which extends all the way to the peaked ceiling, where it is decorated with a pair of crossed snowshoes.  As we brought our own, Françoise & I did not have to steal that pair in order to discover on Friday, as an alternative to our XC skiing, an exceptional snowshoe trail beside a meandering stream, half covered over with deep fresh powder snow, the other half a gurgling creek.  Our raving about this over Friday evening dinner enticed Don, Jessica & Roby, all on snowshoes, to join us in a re-run Saturday.  You might call Françoise & me sissies on snowshoes, but not the 3 others  – all terrors on downhill skis. 

The decoration ’90!’ in small white candles was compliments Jessica.

Thanks, Owen, for catching this memorable moment at 90 in my life, just before I cut into the cake, surrounded that evening by 24 dear family & friends.  I moment I’ll never forget. 

After a couple of ‘warm-ups’ of the pair of breakfast chefs Don & Jessica

A hilarious moment as Rae is regaling Françoise with some preposterous story.

Photos of Rae don’t get any better than what Owen caught here!!!   This one is for the family album of record.

Owen caught Françoise & Alex sceptical of what I’m trying to sell.

Laura with, as a perfect background, the big photo of ‘Le Massif’ on the wall of “The Rectory”.  For those unlucky souls not present, Le Massif is the outstanding alternative where most of those present skied one day as a change from Mt. Ste. Anne.

Greetings to all, now that we’re back home & back to our regular life, and now that the marvellous time we shared at Mt. Ste. Anne has become part of our memories. 

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Footnote written by Murray and heavily edited by webmaster:

I came to this family reunion carrying a just-arrived memento of those who have been central to my professional life in McGill’s Chemical Engrg Dept. While our time together was family reunion time, I did have occasion to refer to the album which I left open on a table, an album containing photos & birthday greetings from 40 graduate students & researchers with whom I have been associated since I joined McGill in 1958. 

Sarah Thompson has the distinction of being the only person who is a member of both my John Henry & Clara  Douglas family & my McGill family of students!! Sarah, a very capable student, spent 3 summers working in my research lab, resulting in us becoming co-authors on 2 papers published by ‘Thompson & Douglas’.  At the end of her 1st summer, my graduate students told me that I had to get Sarah back the next year as she was “the best summer student they had ever had”!!  With Sarah’s & my last names being different, no one in my lab ever knew of our family connection!!!

Murray Douglas

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Below are three pictures subsequently sent to Murray by Sarah and her birthday message:

Dear Uncle Murray, aka Douglas VP for Montreal –

Sending you my gratitude on the occasion of your 90th birthday. Thank you for always being the most interesting/interested person at our family reunions. Thank you for letting me work with Hashemi. Thank you for presenting me with my iron ring. Thank you for the picnics with Anne. Thank you for the vegetarian dinners. Thank you for the laughter. Thank you for your ever contagious smile.

And thank you for being such an inspiration and a treasure to both the McGill and Douglas families. I am so proud to be part of both of them.  

All my love,
Sarah 

Todd, Jack & myself with the travel trailer we restored. It’s now parked on the land of the 1890s farmhouse we are restoring so our weekends are busy. I include as an invitation to any and all Douglas’ that may find their way visiting Texas- we’d love to have you! 

Our McGill group on the way to present some work, including the co-authored paper “Local Nonuniformity in Through Drying by Local Exhaust Air Temperature Measurement”. My copy is not dated but I believe it was the summer of 1995. 

During the same trip Murray & Hashemi made a spur of the moment apple pick on the drive to the conference. This stop perfectly represents your infectious joie to vivre!