Another Brother

The next eldest is Wim Houben, born on July 25th 1953 while mom & dad were living on 7th and Arbutus in Vancouver. Shortly thereafter they moved to Kitimat.

In Kitimat the winters were extremely cold & that is when he got the habbit of playing with his ears - initially it was because they hurt from the cold.

He had epilepsy when he was young, but luckily outgrew it. His only other issue is hayfever (which means I have to be the one to mow the lawn - sigh).








Here is a photo of Wim and the youngest of the brothers - Robert. This was taken at my sister Sylvia's wedding. It should have been a happy time, but was rather marred by the fact that dad had gotten into a bad accident just a few days before, when he was coming back from Vancouver picking up the bride's maid.

The bride's maid was very luck, especially seeing that she hadn't been wearing a seat belt. She had just turned sideways to talk to dad when the accident occurred & she slid under the dashboard instead of going through the window.

It was a very bad accident, with the driver of the other car dying. Luckily, an off duty policeman had been travelling behind dad & saw the whole thing (the other vehicle had cut in front of dad) and was able to testify that dad was not at fault.





Wim has never moved out. He's always lived with mom & dad, which has been a blessing - what with first mom's health issues (dad would not have been able to cope by himself) and now with dad and his amputation.

Here's a recent photo taken at Jared's wedding, with dad and Sylvia's daughter Donna.