Ferdinand Leopold Lutter was born to Ferdinand Wilhelm Lutter and Sarah Elizabeth Lutter-Dene on February 7, 1929 in Balikpapan on the island of Borneo in the colonial Dutch East Indies. He had one brother, three years older, Frederik Hendrik Lutter. The family moved to the Hague after their father’s retirement from Royal Dutch Shell in 1932. At age 12 Leo was sent to a boarding school in Arnhem where his experiences set the stage for his survival as a teenager growing up in Nazi -occupied Holland.
Leo emigrated to New Zealand in 1951, after the war ended and Indonesia declared its independence from the Netherlands in 1949. There he married Maria (Ria) Verbeek of Rotterdam on October 13, 1951. They had four sons: Ferdinand Willem (Lanny), Henk Eric (Carolyn), Johannes Willem (Mona) and Robert Alexander (Maureen). Leo has nine grandchildren and two great grandchildren. In 1968 his marriage to Ria dissolved and he emigrated once again across continents to Calgary, Canada before settling in the Vancouver area where he lived with his dear friend Joan Thomas for 12 years.
In British Columbia, Leo built a career as a business and investment consultant, becoming a regional manager for Canada Trust. He also became very involved in a number of charitable organizations, including serving for 12 years as the director of the Haro Park Centre Hospital in Vancouver. On November 12, 1986, Leo married a second time to Margaret (Peggy) Schnauwaert. It was a short lived marriage as she passed away a few years later. In his later years he lived in Mission, Canada with his two dacshunds and traveled extensively with his friend, Puck Zan Den Brenk from Holland.
The second son in a traditionally patriarchal Dutch East Indies colonial family, Leo's heart beat to a different drummer. While business was his day job, Leo was also an acclaimed artist. His paintings have been shown in collections and galleries from Wellington and Sidney to Tokyo and Vancouver to Utrecht.
Leo Lutter passed away on April 13th in Sidney on Vancouver Island. He leaves behind three sons (his son Jan Willem and his brother Henk preceded him in death), nine grandchildren two great grandchildren and a dear niece and two nephews, as well as a host of friends and admirers across several continents who share his love of beauty, art, good wine, and adventure.
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