In a family with 13 siblings, Ronald Worsfold stood out because he was quiet and shy, according to his daughter Stacey Worsfold.
Born in 1942, he grew up in Jasper, where his parents, George and Dora Worsfold, raised Worsfold and a crowd of boisterous siblings in a three-bedroom bungalow.
“I think my dad, being in the middle of the pack, and him coming so closely before my uncle who had developmental disabilities and needed more attention, my dad was more introverted,” Stacey Worsfold said.
Along with his brothers, Worsfold had to dig the basement of the family home so that there was more room for the kids.
When they were between the ages of 16-18, most of the Worsfold children were told to leave home and find their own paths in life.
For Worsfold that meant moving to Edmonton, where he worked as a butcher at Gainers meatpacking plant during the '60s and '70s. At the same time, he worked at an Esso gas station and an Edmonton movie theatre. (Worsfold always had two or three jobs.)
He met his first wife, Linda Yeoman, in Edmonton, and together they raised four children: Sandy, Darren, Stacey and Cindy.
The couple divorced when Stacey Worsfold was about six years old. She said that it led to a tumultuous upbringing for the four Worsfold siblings, as they bounced back and forth between their mother’s care and the foster system.
Yeoman absconded with the children to the US for several years, leaving Worsfold with no clue as to the whereabouts of his family.
Stacey Worsfold landed in a foster home on the West Coast, where Worsfold found her again when she was around 11 years old.
Even though her father was absent for most of her childhood, Stacey Worsfold said she does not hold any resentment towards him.
“We were able to discuss the past without feeling wrong or judged,” she said. “My dad would allow you to blast him with your feelings, but he would still like a chance to explain how events unfolded for him.”
Testimony from Worsfold’s family and friends gives the impression that he was an easy man to forgive.
Besides hardworking, the word most frequently used to describe Worsfold in interviews and in court was “kind.”
Reading his victim impact statement in court last Wednesday, grandson Paxton Clarke said Worsfold was “gruff and stern, but very kind and loving …. [He] was an old fashioned and traditional, hardworking man that loved to keep himself busy working two jobs, caretaking an apartment building and, when he had time, watching the Oilers.”
Friend Kyla Mandrusiak in court said that she “grew up looking at Ron like [her] uncle.”
“Ron cared about the people in his life,” she said.
“All who knew him knew of his gentle kindness, caring and helpfulness towards others,” said granddaughter Shawna Marie Flett. “I always looked forward to visiting Edmonton and going to his home…. We got big bear hugs from him…. We would find laughter and meals with his homemade pickles, the thing we all looked forward to.”
Family and friends noted that in his role as apartment building manager, Worsfold would pay for tenants’ rent when they came up short.
Donna Doak and Worsfold worked together as cashiers at a St. Albert Petro-Canada for 34 years until Worsfold’s death. Doak remembers that they hit it off right away.
“We laughed about the same kind of stuff,” she said. “I liked to tease him that the Oilers weren’t going to win.”
Worsfold would be waiting with coffee when Doak arrived for the morning shift. They would chat for half an hour before work started and half an hour after it ended.
Customers thought the pair were married because the two of them “bantered back and forth.”
“In the winter he’d warm up my car and clean all the snow off so I didn’t have to — that’s who he was,” she said. “People would go, ‘Is he actually gonna do that?’ And I’d say, ‘I sure as heck hope so!’”
Before he moved to St. Albert, Worsfold lived in Red Deer with his second wife. Together they helped support Worsfold’s brother, Albert.
He divorced again and met his “soulmate” Florence Failing in the mid-1980s. The pair moved to the St. Albert apartment that Worsfold managed until his death.
“[Florence] was a spunky lady who loved to laugh, and they loved to go on drives and to travel,” Stacey Worsfold said. “Sundays they would always get together and make dinner for my grandparents…. They just clicked.”
Failing passed in the early 2000s. Stacey Worsfold remembers her father being devastated and “losing his spark.”
“I think my dad grew up a man who, no doubt about it, had self-worth issues,” Stacey Worsfold said.
She believes that this struggle was most apparent in the way her father continued to stick by people with addictions and mental health challenges, even when those people mistreated him.
“I think my dad never gave up,” she said.
Worsfold was a regular volunteer with Kin Canada, helping them at their rodeos and doing hampers at Christmas.
“He was always there in the background, always giving and supporting,” Stacey Worsfold said.
She said that after her father's death, strangers would approach her to say they remembered her dad from the gas station. He taught them to pump gas, and continued to offer them suckers long after they had grown from children into adults.
Hundreds of family members, friends, coworkers, acquaintances and community members gathered in the St. Albert Grain Elevator Park to celebrate Worsfold's life after he died in 2017. Many came dressed in blue and many wore Oilers jerseys (Worsfold’s favourite colour and favourite team). Rexall place, where Worsfold worked as an usher, gave staff boxes of Tic Tacs emblazoned with blue hearts and Worsfold’s initials.
For Stacey Worsfold, seeing the crowd that day reminded her how her father, despite being mild-mannered and quiet, was not invisible; he was an important part of St. Albert.
Stacey Worsfold said she wants St. Albert to know that she is grateful for the community’s support, love and continual acknowledgement of her father’s kindness.
