William Ross Maltman

On Sunday, March 1, 2020, William Ross Maltman, of Etobicoke, loving husband and father of five children, passed away at the age of 81 after 9 years as a stroke survivor, and did so embracing his lifelong credo:  Live with integrity, fight adversity, die with grace and dignity. He passed peacefully with wife of 46 years, Suzanne and daughter, Valerie at his bedside holding his hands.

Ross was born on September 29th, 1938 in Toronto General Hospital and lived on Neville Park Blvd in the Beach neighbourhood of Toronto. He grew up there during the school year and spent summers at his extended family's cottage and bohemian artists' colony on Lake Florence in the lakes NE of Winnipeg, the city where his parents had met.  The son of world reknowned watercolourist and colleague of Group of Seven artists, William (Bill) Maltman and his fellow artist and wife Florence (Hutcheson) Maltman, they enjoyed quite an adventurous life.  Ross and his highly successful commercial and fine artist parents lived mostly in Toronto, as well as for a year in Australia when he was  5 and a year in Winnipeg at age 8 near his maternal cousins and grandparents.

Every summer he visited his maternal aunt, founder of St Anne's Gaelic College on Cape Breton Island where he learned Highland and Ballroom dancing successfully, but was unsuccessful in learning to speak Gaelic, as he had no flair for other languages than English.

Ross was a civil engineer employed in the Heavy  Construction Industry.  In his late teens, as a summer job, Ross was employed building the Trans Canada Pipeline.  Then, while an Engineering student, he worked as a surveyor and Shift Boss building sewers with construction company Robert McAlpine.  As he gained experience he moved up the ranks to Asst Superintendent then Superintendent of subway tunnels, stations and large buildings, dams and other huge projects across Ontario, Quebec and the Maritimes.  When he left Robert McAlpine as Chief Estimator  in 1975 for Deep Foundations he moved into estimating and managing specialized foundation projects as one of their key personnel with his vast knowledge of the ground underlying large cities in Ontario.   He enjoyed a stellar reputation as one of the top people in his field in the province.

Ross had a great zest for life and deep love for friends,  family, and colleagues.   When he left his position at Robert McAlpine, Ross took a well earned 3 month break from his work realizing a lifelong dream of sailing in the Bahamas in 1974.  This was a major step up for him.  He loved round the buoy and long haul races on Lake Ontario out of Frenchmans Bay with his best friend Carl Kindree in his Shark, but his sailor's soul passed down from his Scottish Clipper ship captain exulted in the leisurely pace of island hopping and gunkholing in the Bahamas.  On his return in early winter of in 1974  he began researching Sailboats for sail.  He met his future wife Suzanne on February 23rd, 1975 and acquired a Contessa 26 in April of 1975 and in May began sailing on Lake Ontario with Suzanne into the late 1980s. Suzanne and Ross were married on April 25th, 1976.  He also loved golfing with dear friends Frank and Maryjane Wilson and wife Suzanne during the 1990s up until the end of Aug 2016. He enjoyed following professional golf tournaments on television and was an avid NASCAR fan and car enthusiast. He was an able mechanic and had a knack for fixing anything. In earlier years, he greatly enjoyed fishing and duck, goose and deer hunting up north of Superior, and later taking his kids fishing on the Madawaska River near Combermere Ontario in the summer when visiting his sister-in-law Marg Stobie at Madonna House with his young family.

He loved travelling and greatly enjoyed  his honeymoon with his new wife Suzanne, travelling the UK and Europe for 6 weeks in 1976 and later on road trips across Canada and the US with his family, flying all over the the USA on business trips with family, and on his final trip in 2015, visiting beautiful Hawaii with Suzanne, Valerie and her friend Joanna. He and wife Suzanne twice visited his daughter Valerie in Ireland while she lived there from 2013 - 2015.
Ross was preceded in death by his father and mother, and is survived by his loving wife Suzanne Maltman, his sons Gavin and Jamie, his three daughters Kim, Christy and Valerie, his daughter-in-law Monica, his granddaughters Echo, Talya, Elrae and Jessica, his grandsons Duncan, Alex, Jake and Kevin, great-grandson Bear, great-grand daughters Haylee, Taylor, Bella, Savannah and Kelsey,  as well as his deceased Evans and Godfrey cousins' children and grandchildren out in Victoria and Vancouver.

A celebration of life will be held on Saturday, March 7th, 2020 at 1pm at Ross' favourite restaurant:

Red Lobster 7291 Yonge St, Thornhill, ON, L3T 2A9 at 1 o’clock p.m.

We would love it if you would join us in this celebration. Please RSVP to valerie.maltman@gmail.com or Cell: 647-233-1221