My friend Stephen Bigsby was a remarkable person. It’s not often you find kindness, supreme intelligence, generosity, political astuteness and laugh-out-loud quick-wittedness in one man. I knew Stephen for most of my life, because his sister Gail was my best friend from grade 1 at Monterey elementary school in Oak Bay, BC.

Meeting the Bigsbys and spending much of my early years at their grand home on the corner of Beach Drive and St. Patrick Street, exploring tide pools on the rocks or dunking in the chilly waters of McNeil Bay, was for me a formative experience. Harry Bigsby, a superintendent of music for the Victoria School Board, oversaw a school program that ensured several generations of Victoria students got a sound musical education. Tall and handsome, and sometimes a little formidable, Harry, unlike most other dads in the 1950s actively engaged with his children and their friends. His American wife Dorothy, whom he met in the music faculty at the University of Washington, was a beautiful singer. She was the cool mum–full of fun, an avid golfer, outgoing and happy to chat with her children’s friends. She was the rare ‘50s mum who had a job, notably in the Hudson’s Bay Company’s record department during the Elvis era. Dorothy was the mother some of us wished our mothers might emulate.

Jim was the eldest. Five years older than Gail and I, he was a high school Somebody when we were still in bobby socks and saddle shoes. After graduating from the University of Victoria and Simon Fraser, Jim developed a business designing and implementing innovative educational materials. An enthusiast of the best kind, Jim was a musical force in Victoria. For decades he directed the Goward House Singers, a choir I joined in 2009, much to my benefit, for Jim was a gifted conductor, educator and orchestral arranger. Tragically, we lost Jim on January 20, only 13 days before his brother Stephen’s death from cancer on February 2, his exuberance stolen by vascular dementia. But that illness never robbed Jim of his expansive spirit, his brilliant smile and magnetic good looks. He leaves his wife Suzanne, steadfast and loving throughout Jim’s final years, son David, daughter Caitlin and their families.

Stephen, only 20 months older than Gail, was from his early teens a force to be reckoned with. He could be highly entertaining: joking, clowning and firing off zingers. Or he could be laser-focused on scholastic achievement, with a drive that saw him and his Oak Bay High School teammates win the BC Grand Champions title on Reach for the Top in 1964. The Bigsby household was not like mine. Here people laughed, joked and debated, expressed their feelings and followed their passions. Stephen was especially adept at debate. From high school, he was marked out for leadership — in politics, diplomacy and executive management.

Gail, lest we forget, was the little sister who more than held her own with her brothers, a talented artist and musician, and a champion golfer. She and I were friends, teammates and rivals on the honours list. We also got up to plenty of no good, starting from puberty. Gail was always the first to try anything forbidden or exciting: she made me do it.

As a first-year student at UVic, I re-encountered Stephen, in his capacity as the 1966-67 student president. He took on the role like the governor of a minor state. He encouraged me to apply for a Canadian Union of Students exchange scholarship that took me to Toronto for a mind-expanding year at York University. I was proud to join Stephen and his friends, including a previous UVic student president, Paul Williamson, at a weekly discussion group held in a downtown Victoria sauna bathhouse. The group was called the Socrates Society, if memory serves. Serious socio-political discussions took place as we sat in our bathing suits and damp towels. Although, it must be admitted, Paul and I also had less erudite pursuits in mind.

Stephen was a most educated man. In addition to a BA from UVic, he held an MA in political science from Carlton University and did a post-graduate year in economics in Stockholm, where he learned Swedish. On top of that, he earned an MBA at Université Laval, becoming a fluent French speaker. These studies were a methodical preparation for Stephen’s application to join the Canadian Trade Commissioner Service, where he worked in Ottawa and then secured an appointment to the Canadian consulate in Milan, Italy.

The fates served up the perfect match for Stephen, in the person of Elisabetta Recchi, a sharp-witted, well educated and cultured Italian, whom he hired to work in the trade commission office. Before long Stephen and Elisabetta were married. When they moved to Montreal in 1981, Stephen became Senior Industrial Commissioner (Europe) for Metropolitan Montreal’s Economic Development Agency. Elisabetta joined the RBC Financial Group, a move that eventually elevated her to the RBC executive committee. By 1997, Stephen and Elisabetta had moved to Toronto, where Stephen held the positions of vice-president at the Canadian Commercial Corporation and executive director at the Association of Canadian Pension Management.

After retirement, the couple travelled extensively, hopping between homes in Toronto, a condo in Victoria’s Swallows Landing and Elisabetta’s haunts in northern Italy. I got to know Stephen afresh and witnessed a marriage of true minds. They were amazing companions, sometimes during one conversation switching from English to French to Italian. Stephen was a loyal friend to those he’d grown up with and always stayed connected with them. He was also a benefactor from an early age, dating back to the summer he spent working for CUSO. A quiet but thoughtful philanthropist, he supported the arts and education.

On walks with him, Elisabetta and Gail, I noted that minor irritants such as a deceptive trail marking on a map of John Dean Park could set Stephen fuming. At the same time, he could, when faced with BC’s real estate speculation and money-laundering tax on their months-empty condo, compose a letter to the NDP government telling them precisely how to better reframe the tax, then post copies in the mail to every BC MLA.

Stephen wore his intelligence lightly; he never pontificated but could casually cast an analysis of Alexander Hamilton’s Federalist Papers, 50 years after he’d studied it. What’s more, he was a true gentleman, kind and considerate and always listening to what others had to say about the world.

I, along with all his friends and family, will miss Stephen fiercely, but we will never forget him. He was a man about whom you could say, he always showed up.

Photo: Stephen and Elisabetta on New York City’s Highline, December 2009, by Jack MacDonald