George Thomas MacDougall

George was born on a stormy winter night in the isolated northern highlands of Cape Breton Island, NS, delivered by midwife and eagerly welcomed as the first son. A hyper active, curious and entrepreneurial young boy; he was once caught selling his father’s home-brew in pop bottles to his little friends, and infamously singed his own eyebrows in an ill-advised attempt to clear snow more efficiently by using dynamite. At an early age he learned to play piano and guitar, and by highschool he was earning money providing backup instrumentals for a local band called ‘The Lumberjacks’.

Following highschool George joined the Canadian Air Force and spent 8 years as a supply tech and search and rescue tech in the Aero-med section, and was posted to 4 Wing (Cold Lake/Medley) Alberta, where he met Edna. Together they built a home, a business, and a family. George and Edna were Grand Centre, Alberta residents for over 40 years, owner-operators of Towne and Country Greenhouses, where Jay and Lesley grew up underfoot or in the cash register for the most part. George spent several terms on town council, and could be found chatting with the ‘boys’ at the public works building, or chatting with homeowners about a tree, or chatting with parents at Jay’s hockey games, or chatting with the coffee crew at the Lakeland inn, or chatting with the ‘girls’ at A&W, or…