November 11, 2012. Alex Napier was a guest of honour at Remembrance Day ceremonies at Courcelette Public School.
Distinguished World War II veteran Alex Napier has passed away at the age of 98.
Napier was a beloved friend of Courcelette Public School, where he volunteered for more than twenty years in an innovative program to help children learn to read.
All of the volunteers in the reading program were former servicemen who attended Courcelette themselves when they were children.
They started with 15 veterans in 1995.
When we interviewed Alex Napier in 2011, he was the only one left.
Alex Napier loved interacting with students, as he did here following Remembrance Day ceremonies at Courcelette on Nov. 11, 2012
A distinguished life
Alex Napier was born in 1914 at 106 Victoria Park Avenue.
He told us that when he was a boy, much of the land on VP south of Kingston Road was bush and all of the property between Fallingbrook and the Hunt Club was part of the Donald Mann estate.
After Courcelette, he started Scarborough High School (now R.H. King Academy) in 1929 and went on to earn his teaching certificate.
He said there wasn’t much demand for male teachers in those days so he wound up working for Imperial Oil and eventually owned his own service station.
He enlisted in the Royal Canadian Navy and served as a Leading Stoker Mechanic aboard a Fairmile in the Gulf of St. Lawrence.
You can learn more about Alex Napier and the very special relationship that Courcelette PS had with its veterans by clicking below.
Visitation for Alex Napier will be held on Sat. March 2nd from 10am – 11am at McDougall and Brown Funeral Home at 2900 Kingston Road.
A service in the funeral home chapel will begin at 11am with interment to follow at Pine Hills Cemetary.
Memorial donations to the Scarborough Bluffs United Church would be appreciated.
