Allan Melvin Johnston

You are your own devil, you are your own God,

You fashioned the paths that your footsteps have trod,

And no one can save you from error or sin,

Until you shall hark to the Spirit within.

Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Allan Melvin Johnston of North Vancouver, BC passed away peacefully at Lions Gate Hospital on April 2, 2024, after several years of courageously fighting multiple illnesses.

Allan was a kind, personable, good humored, man who had a resourceful, adaptable, and creative, spirit. He lived by the idea that your own choices make your life, not the circumstance or the actions of others.

Allan was born to Nettie and Melvin Johnston on December 27, 1936, in Chatham, New Brunswick and would become the second oldest of ten children. They lived in a modest home which was- ill equipped to house such a big family, especially by today’s standards. Food and other necessities of life were limited. It was at this time, at an early age, that Allan made the first of many choices to alter his life as he left his family home to live with his grandmother (Beatrice Johnston) and then his aunt (Alice Milson). His resourcefulness came to light at this time also as he found more and more ways to make money for himself by snaring rabbits, selling smelts, cod, flounders as well as shoveling snow in the winter. At the age of 14, he joined the army and became Corporal A.M Johnston with the North Shore New Brunswick regiment. He felt that it was in the army where he learned responsibility and the courage “to fashion his own path.”

Although Allan’s formal schooling was not suited to his sensibilities, he still became a life–long learner. Always seeking to find the answers to some of life’s great questions, he became an avid reader and was often heard reciting his favourite passages. He understood that he could be responsible for his own learning and took ownership of his own education.

It is with the same resourceful adaptiveness that led Allan to Toronto and then Vancouver where he used his personable nature to gain employment in sales (Croft in Toronto, Morton Engineering and Gordon Russel Ltd in Vancouver). In 1958, after seeing a movie that was filmed in British Columbia, and loving what he saw, Allan took the train to Vancouver. He loved Vancouver’s mountains, mild climate, and access to the other parts of the province, and thus made his new path start and end here.

When he joined the Young Peoples’ Group at Chalmers United Church in Vancouver, he set the path for the rest of his life. After a memorable Church trip to South-East Asia in 1962, Allan realized that his place was on the West Coast with a young lady named Gladys Sparling. In May of 1963 they were married, bought a house, and settled in North Vancouver where they raised their family.

His new family life was marked by his kindness and belief in practicing tolerance and understanding to have a good relationship with others and raise a family. Allan embraced fatherhood and did his best to guide his children with humour and his favourite verses in poetry. His notion of family was broad. He welcomed all into his home. At times, his basement was full of rowdy teenagers and his family dinners included anyone who didn’t have anywhere else to go. Allan especially enjoyed his grandchildren, and they enjoyed him too. He taught them to fish, pushed them around in a wheelbarrow and engaged in many other silly fun activities.

Allan was not just a devoted family man making his “trodden path,” he also knew how to enjoy life. He delighted in fishing and camping in remote locations, playing hockey, sketching with pastels, and famously making drinks with a big bottle of rye and one can of mix.

When he got sick with pulmonary fibrosis followed by colorectal cancer, prostate cancer and Parkinson’s, it tested his resolve and challenged all aspects of his life. Still, he persevered until his body wouldn’t let him anymore. His spirit, his life and desire to “fashion a path” that his “footsteps had trod” lives on in those who were privileged to know him.

He is survived by his wife, Gladys, children David, Brad (Jacqueline), and Sara (Derek) and grandchildren Tyler, Amanda, Rylan and Amelia. He will also be missed by his brother Van, sister Beatrice and cousin Cynthia (Ron). A Celebration of Life will be held on May 18, 2024, at 3pm at Mt. Seymour United Church. In lieu of flowers donations please donate to Lions Gate Hospital or Mt. Seymour United Church.

From body to body your spirit speeds on;

It seems a new form when the old one is gone;

And the form that it finds is the fabric you wrought

On the loom of the mind with the fiber of thought.

Ella Wheeler Wilcox

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