Athlete, soldier, dentist, father. Born April 20, 1925, in Montreal. Died Jan. 5 in Victoria, B.C., of cancer, aged 80.
Larry didn't follow the path his parents had mapped out for him. His father, Lee, was a domineering personality and it was Lee's fondest wish that Larry go into practice with him in Windsor, Ont., where Lee was a former mayor and power in the Liberal Party.
The Second World War intervened. As soon as he was old enough, Larry signed up, one of the few times he defied the wishes of both his father and his dear mother, Peg. A great natural athlete, he soon held the army record for the 100 yard dash.
Not long after the war, he startled a group of people playing cards in the lobby of an Ontario ski resort. Their table was set up near a room that no one had entered or left for hours and the lights were off. Suddenly the door to this room was flung open and Larry erupted into the lobby, a gorgeous woman on his arm, his hair in disarray and his face covered in lipstick. As he sauntered by the card players, he caught the eye of a striking redhead, smiled knowingly and nodded to her, almost imperceptibly. She thought this stranger an arrogant ass. They were married not long afterward.
Larry studied dentistry at the University of Toronto, where his father had played pool before him. It always tickled his funny bone that the civic number of the dental school on the street where it was located was 230 -- pronounced, of course, as "tooth-hurty." As the head of his class at the school, it was his responsibility to represent the interests of the students to the faculty. Larry went to argue the case for one student to be given a second chance to write the exams. The dean told Larry that they might grant his request -- if he were prepared to write the extra exams as well. Larry looked the dean in the eye and calmly said that he could pass any exam they could set. He won that argument.
Life in the military obviously appealed to Larry, because almost as soon as he completed his dental studies, he was off to Canada's latest war, Korea, as a captain in the dental corps. He was stationed in Japan; he and his wife Rusty always joked that their first son, Larry Jr., had "Made in Japan" stamped on his bottom, because that's where he was conceived.
Soon after Korea, Larry moved to B.C., setting up his practice in West Vancouver. He was active in the community, especially in the sporting field. He was one of the founders of the Gordon Sturtridge Football League and of the CFL's B.C. Lions. He was an avid curler too, and also a keen and skillful bridge player.
Larry had an active and inquiring mind. To his boggled children, the simplest questions brought forth the most amazingly detailed and thoughtful answers. Even former B.C. Liberal Leader Gordon Gibson says: ". . .I always left his office having in some way had my mind improved as well as my teeth."
Like many transplanted Central Canadians, Larry came to identify with the West, ultimately abandoning his inherited Liberalism and embracing with enthusiasm Preston Manning and Reform.
In the best tradition of stubborn and prideful Irish families, there were many feuds. Larry's parents approved neither of his marriage, nor of the move west. The second son, I left home as a teenager after a bitter dispute with Rusty, opening a schism that divided the whole family. In later years, Larry clearly regretted that he had allowed so many hard choices to be forced on him: his wife or his parents and his wife or his son. How this had all come about remained mysterious to him until the end of his days.
In retirement, Larry and Rusty too became estranged, both moving to Victoria, but living apart for several years. They reconciled not long before his death.
Brian Lee Crowley is Larry Crowley's son.