Alan R. Canada

Alan R. Canada, 80, died November 29, 2022, at his Indianapolis home, where he had lived with his wife, Mary Frances (Turner) Canada, for 56 years. Born in Winchester, Indiana, in 1942, he was the son of Charles C. and Angela M. Canada.

A master craftsman, he worked as a tool and die maker for Western Electric in Indianapolis for many years before taking a job at Riley Hospital for Children, where he designed and built devices for doctors to be used in the medical treatment of children.

A Christian man of deep faith, he was a member of Abundant Life Church in the Castleton area of northeast Indianapolis and gave generously to numerous charities in an effort to ease the suffering of his fellow human beings.

He loved water (especially when he could ski on it), sunsets, Hawaii, his back yard, ocean cruises, fresh tomatoes and pineapple, country and western music, and opportunities to learn how things work. More than anything, he loved his family: wife Mary (whom he married in 1964), son Mark, daughter-in-law Lisa, granddaughter Esprit, and grandson Will. He spent countless hours traveling, coaching, building, playing, and laughing with them. They were the best hours of his life.

Visitation will be held from 1:00 p.m. until 2:00 p.m. on Tuesday, December 6, 2022, at Flanner Buchanan – Oaklawn Memorial Gardens (Conner Suite), 9700 Allisonville Road, Indianapolis 46250, immediately followed by a funeral service at 2:00 p.m.  Interment will follow in Oaklawn Memorial Gardens Cemetery.  In lieu of flowers, please consider a memorial contribution in Alan’s honor to Riley Children’s Foundation.

A Tribute by His Son, Mark

If you wanted something done right, you gave it to Al Canada.

That could be the theme of my dad’s life.

His coworkers knew it. As a tool and die maker and master craftsman, he would settle for nothing less than perfection. When his colleagues at Riley Hospital needed someone to build anesthesia carts, he was their man, and he did it perfectly. In all the years those carts were in use, there was never a problem. He shared that fact with me just a few weeks ago. His work served untold numbers of children, and, although they never knew him, their lives were indirectly in his hands. They could have been in no better ones.

At home, he was the same way. My mom gave him an endless list of projects, and she was easier to please than he was. That’ll do, she would tell him after he had done the basics. No, of course it wouldn’t do–not for Al Canada, not until it was level, plumb, even, straight, perfect.

Now this quality of my dad may not mean that much to you if you are not my mom or if you did not need one of those anesthesia carts or the other devices he designed for the treatment of children, but remember that this quality of Al Canada pervaded his entire life and the lives of all those who were fortunate enough to have spent any time with him.

When I was about seven years old, I fell in love with baseball. My team needed a coach, and who do you think stepped up to the plate? You need to understand that my dad did not particularly care for baseball. Basketball and waterskiing were his sports, but I was his son, and I needed a coach. So did all those other boys on my team. And boy, did they ever get one. He may not have known much about baseball at first, but he resolved to become an expert. After all, he was Al Canada. He read books about baseball. He learned the rules of baseball – far better than I ever did. But that’s not all. The really special part is the approach he took to coaching. At the park where I played, the rules said that every boy got to play two innings. He made sure of that, and he went even further, striving to ensure that every boy also got a chance to bat. Now, if you know anything about youth sports, you probably know that this approach did not go over well with all of the parents. Why jeopardize the team’s chances of winning by sending a kid to the plate when he wasn’t a very good hitter? It was the right thing to do, though, and by golly Al Canada was going to do the right thing. He never broke a rule–an official one on the books or an ethical one in his heart–but he still managed to win, taking one of my teams all the way to the city championship. You see, not only did he do things right, he also did them extraordinarily well.

That was especially true when it came to his family. As a husband, he was loyal, reliable, and full of love for my mom. He gave her extraordinary gifts, including masterworks of jewelry that he made himself, but mostly he gave himself and his life.

As the one person in the world lucky enough to be his son, I was the beneficiary of so much that he did right and well. He gave me time–so much time, not just on the baseball diamond, but in the backyard, in the basement over a game of Scrabble or backgammon, and in the garage, where we worked on projects together. He also gave me advice, lots and lots of advice, even when I didn’t ask for it! Most of all, he gave me values – honesty, hard work, love, conscientiousness, self-sacrifice. In other words, he taught me to do things right. Every child should be so blessed as to have Al Canada for a father.

Finally, when Lisa and I had children of our own, Papa, as we called him, did grandparenting right. He showered Esprit and Will with love from their childhoods until the end of his life. Just a few days ago, as we were celebrating Thanksgiving with him and Mom, I showed him some of the pictures we had of him–building a little boat with Esprit at the Children’s Museum, standing with his beaming grandson at the zip line that he had made for him and Esprit in his backyard. They were crazy about him, of course, and they were–along with Mom, Lisa, and me–the best parts of his life. There could be no question about that. In his quiet way, he made that obvious.

Whether it was an anesthesia cart, a home project, a baseball team, a marriage, parenting, or grandparenting, it was all the same. If you wanted it done right, you gave it to Al Canada.

Looking back now, I realize that no one knew this truth better than God himself. He wanted a life done right, so he gave it to Al Canada.