Alan Dean, pictured Nov. 10, 2019, prior to attending the Remembrance Day ceremonies at Pointe-Claire City Hall. Dean passed away, Jan. 18, just shy of his 82 birthday.
Alan Dean is being remembered in low-vision circles as a fellow who could get things done. Dean, who was president of the Low Vision Self-Help Association for 15 years, died Jan. 18. He was exactly one month shy of his 82 birthday.
“I first met Alan in 2000. He was really struggling (with his vision loss) and was feeling pretty down,” Irene Lambert said. “I was able to pick him up and lead him through the process.”
Lambert is a founding member of the 32-year-old Low Vision Self-Help Association — a group that helps people with low-vision connect with the resources they need to live full and independent lives and organizes education and social events.
Dean soon became a large presence in the low-vision community.
“He could get things done,” Lambert said. “He was great at organization.”
Dean was born in Liverpool, the youngest of nine children. He had roots in Montreal through his mother and moved here in 1959 after serving as a Royal Air Force pilot, stationed in Singapore. He met his wife Norma at a dance at the downtown YWCA and they married in 1961. Norma Dean passed away in 2013. They are survived by three children and four grandchildren.
Dean was self-employed, working as an international freight forwarder.
“He was an accomplished man,” son David Dean said. “And he was a good father. He was a Cub Scout and Boy Scout leader and was always trying to spark young minds.”
Dean said his father loved knowledge and would set out to learn everything he could about a given subject, be it volcanoes or gems and minerals. He was an avid stamp collector and president of the Lakeshore Stamp Club. He played piano and was a great storyteller.
“And then there were jokes, jokes, jokes,” Dean said, laughing.
Dean’s stories were so good, he ended up as a guest on BBC Radio Merseyside — on a show hosted by fellow Liverpudlian Billy Maher. (Not to be mistaken for American comedian and political commentator Bill Maher.)
LVSHA president John Ohberg first heard about Dean from a nurse who was caring for his wife Clora Delany, following her cancer diagnosis. (She passed away in 2010.)
“The nurse was very impressed with Alan, what he could do,” Ohberg said. “He was the type of person people looked up to. When I first met him he was chairing the (low-vision) meetings and was completely blind. He was a man of many interests. He played the piano (at Chartwell Le Wellesley seniors’ residence in Pointe-Claire). He loved old movies. He was a collector. I was always impressed with how he managed himself.”
Dean was diabetic and began to lose his sight in earnest in 1996, although there had been previous indications of vision loss. As his sight worsened, Dean became involved with the Montreal Association for the Blind, which, in turn, suggested he contact the Low Vision Self-Help Association.
Alan Dean sits beside a copy of the Canada Post braille stamp issued in April 2008, at the Montreal Association for the Blind.
PHIL CARPENTER /
The Gazette
Dean used his contacts in the stamp-collecting world to help facilitate the creation of a braille stamp to commemorate the centenary of the Montreal Association for the Blind in 2008.
“He had an impact on different groups, the MAB, the low-vision association, the Lakeshore Stamp Club,” Dean said. “He was a man of action.”
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