It’s been a strange last few weeks for yours truly. It all started three weeks ago when I learned that Laporte family patriarch Roger Laporte passed away at the age of 99.

For those of you who don’t know, Roger Laporte was the founder of Laporte Flowers and Nursery that provided the majority of Orléans lawn and garden needs for the better part of five decades. He’s also the man behind Ontario’s red light cameras.

In 1997, Roger’s son Michel was killed when a delivery van ran a red light and broadsided his car. In effort to bring meaning to his son’s tragic death, Laporte began lobbying members of Ottawa-Carleton Regional Council and Queen’s Park. His efforts paid off a little over a year later when the provincial legislature passed a bill allowing local municipalities to use cameras to deter motorists from running red lights.

At the time I was the managing editor of the Orléans Star and I wrote several editorials supporting Roger’s campaign, for which he was extremely grateful. And when I left the Star to start orleansonline.ca, he was one of my biggest supporters along with his son Jean and his daughter-in-law Estelle, who by then had taken over the garden centre.

Roger passed away on Jan. 24. Sadly, his son Jean passed away two weeks later after battling cancer. He was only 64, one year older than myself.

I owe a lot to Jean and Estelle. They were among the first people to support my fledgling website in 2001, along with Germain and Guy Souligny from the Heritage Funeral Home and Lionel Laurin from Ace Body Shop.

They were also the first people to back me when I bought the Orleans Star in 2016. After I was able to secure the financing to buy the newspaper, I needed three businesses to each pay me $5,000 in advance for advertising so I would have enough working capital to get me through the first couple of months.

During the 1980s and well into the 90s, there wasn’t a street in Orléans that didn’t have at least two or three houses on it with plants purchased from J.A. Laporte.

Jean and Estelle used to take turns manning a small gazebo in the middle of the nursery where they would dispense advice to anyone who would ask. They were also one of the biggest donors to groups and organizations in the community from local schools and churches to the Boy Scouts and Girl Guides.

When I started organizing the Greater Orléans Canada Day Celebration on Petrie Island they were the first Gold Level spon-sors to come on board and they were also one of the first sponsors of my Orléans Outstanding Youth Awards.

When it comes the size of a person’s heart, there were none bigger than Jean and Estelle’s. He will be deeply missed.

The third friend I lost recently was Lola Larmour who passed away on Feb. 8 at the age of 105.

I had the privilege to interview Lola on the occasion of her 100th birthday in 2019.

To say she was spry would be a massive understatement. She did all of her own housework and cook-ing and insisted on living on the second floor of the Hervé Joly Seniors Home in Sarsfield so she could walk up and down the stairs to her apartment.

“I’m happy and I’m enjoying life,” Lola told me. “As long as God gives me the strength I’m going to keep going,” She managed to keep going for nearly six more years.

Lola was married twice and is survived by her five children, 12 grandchildren, 13 great-grandchildren and five great-great-grandchildren.

There’s a time in a person’s life when you start going to more funerals than weddings. It happens slowly and at first you don’t really notice until you start going to a funeral every few months or so, and then two or three in a couple of weeks.

I am truly blessed to have known Roger, Jean and Lola. Meeting them they made my life that much richer.

(If you wish to comment on this or any other View Point column please write to Fred Sherwin at fsherwin@orleansstar.ca)