In memory of those who have Crossed the Bar

FARDY, Gerard James (Darce) - Darce Fardy, 89, died the way he lived – with dignity – on Saturday, March 12, 2022, at home in Halifax. He left this life surrounded by his loving family, at the time and place of his own choosing, and fully at peace. But only after a toast, a Manhattan, a laugh, a cry, and a rousing chorus of Ode to Newfoundland. We should all have such great fortune.

He was born May 15, 1932, in St. John’s NL. His given name was Gerard, but no one ever called him that. Nor does anyone know where ‘Darce’ came from. When pressed, he would recite his full name as ‘Gerard James Robert Irish-Nick Cooper-Conn Aloysius Gonzaga Rumbia Fardy’. ‘Darce’ it was, then.

After attending and (by some accounts) graduating from St. Bonaventure College (St. Bon’s) he ascended from the role of senior alter boy at the Basilica and, lacking more compelling prospects, packed it off to upstate New York to join the Order of the Irish Christian Brothers. Demonstrating limited creative range, he took the name ‘Bonaventure’. His proclivity for irreverence, humour and mischief was sufficiently disruptive to see him soon spirited away in the middle of the night and put on the train back home. That signaled the end of both Brother Bonaventure and his vows of “Poverty, Chastity and Obedience”, for which his future spouse and offspring remain eternally grateful (especially with respect to the first two).

Undeterred by this unceremonious defrocking, he fell into a job at the fledgling Canadian Broadcasting Corporation in St. John’s, only three years after anything in Newfoundland was labelled ‘Canadian’. There, he worked his way through the newsroom and soon became the first national news reporter for the CBC television in the tenth province. His was the voice of Newfoundland to the rest of Canada, reporting on any and all matters of provincial or national import. Prime Minister John Diefenbaker once pronounced “all I hear of Newfoundland comes from my good friend Darce Fardy”.

In 1954, Darce was introduced to 17-year-old Dorothea Jean Neary of Portugal Cove by a mutual friend. His dogged, if sometimes awkward, pursuit eventually bore fruit when she agreed to marry him in 1958. Reflective of his pledge to keep Dorothea ‘in the lifestyle to which she had become accustomed’, the published wedding announcement reported that “Mr. and Mrs. Fardy will be spending their honeymoon on a “driving holiday.” And off they were to Makinsons (pop. circa 450), an hour’s drive west.

Darce’s career with the CBC led him into increasingly interesting and challenging roles, including a stint at the United Nations in New York, in the newsroom in Edmonton, as Director of Television in St. John’s and Halifax and eventually to network HQ in Toronto where he served as Head of Current Affairs, overseeing programs such as The Journal, The Fifth Estate, and Marketplace (to name a few) as well as all documentary productions, including many international award winners. He loved every job he had at the CBC, and retired in 1991.

For a period during his CBC career, Darce also served part-time in the reserves as a Naval Lieutenant. Maritime Command must have never felt so vulnerable. In 1979-80 he was chosen to attend the National Defence College, based in Kingston, ON, for a year of geo-political globe-trotting with 50 other Canadian military officers and civilian leaders strapped into a RCAF Hercules transport aircraft. They visited six continents, meeting with government leaders from dozens of countries.

Darce saw retirement as a word, not a state of being. He therefore accepted an appointment as the first Review Officer overseeing the Nova Scotia Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act, where he drew both admiration and ire from elected officials and senior public servants, depending on whether they were the requestors or requestees of government-held information. He served in that role for eleven years, ‘re-retiring’ in 2007. Still not prepared to step fully back, he founded the Nova Scotia Right to Know Coalition, an advocacy not-for-profit, which he ran from his home office, between the chest freezer and furnace in the basement, for several years.

In 2013 Darce was awarded the Queens Diamond Jubilee medal, in recognition for his commitment and contribution to public access to information. As someone who lived off the public purse his whole life, it seemed a delicious irony that he was nominated for this honour by the Canadian Taxpayer’s Federation. A compliment if there ever was one. He was also awarded the 2017 Grace-Pépin Access to Information Award, which recognizes those who make an exceptional contribution in the field of access to information.

Darce was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease in 2013. To his credit, he immediately (and voluntarily) turned in his car keys and decided, as a former journalist, to share his story of living with dementia through a semi-regular column in the Halifax Chronicle Herald. Thankfully, the disease progressed slowly enough that he was able to write the column, with increasing doses of intervention from editor-in-chief Dorothea, for many years. Countless friends and strangers commented on how much they appreciated this effort to both de-stigmatize the disease and give others dealing with it some comfort.

Darce was predeceased by his parents, Hugh James Fardy and Mary (Doody) Fardy, older brothers Hugh, Frank and Paul, older sister Margaret O’Brien and his younger sister and favourite, Mary. It was left to him to turn out the lights as the last Fardy sibling to leave the party. He also lost his son-in-law, Donnie MacInnes, in 2010.

He is survived by his loving and medal-deserving wife of 63 years, Dorothea, who claims the secret to their long marriage was a husband who was away a lot. He will be greatly missed by his daughters Sheila and Donna, son Peter (Carol), who, as children, could hardly contain themselves at the breakfast table in anticipation of their dad saying goodbye, pretending to miss the kitchen doorway, and walking into the wall. He did not disappoint.

Darce is also survived by six grandchildren of whom he was very proud and from whom he took great joy: Gabrielle and Patrick Emilien, Amber and David Fardy, and Seamus and Molly MacInnes. As Grandad, he took tremendous interest in their many academic, athletic, professional and extra-curricular pursuits.

A celebration of Darce’s splendid life will be held at a later date when we can party like he would want us to (less than six feet apart).

The family suggests that donations in Darce’s memory, for those inclined, may be made to the Alzheimer’s Society of Nova Scotia (alzheimer.ca/ns/en/donate), or to support Alzheimer’s research at Dalhousie University (dal.ca, then click "Support Dal" at the top of the page).

“Take me back to that snug green cove... Where the seas roll up their thunder ..... There let me rest in the earth's cool breast. ... Where the stars shine out their wonder ... And the seas roll up their thunder.”