Donald Ian Williamson, at the age of 100, died peacefully in his sleep on August 1, 2024, at the Civic Hospital in Ottawa. Don lived every one of his 36,510 days fully, becoming a master of many skills and insights.

Don was born on July 22, 1924, in Wetaskiwin, Alberta, and spent his early and teenage years in British Columbia. His experiences during the 1920s and the Great Depression shaped his thinking and life perspectives.

In July 1943, Don enlisted in the Royal Canadian Air Force and served in England during World War II. Returning from the war, he completed studies in mathematics and physics at UBC, rejoining the RCAF as an officer serving until his retirement in 1969. Don then embarked on a career at Algonquin College in Ottawa, teaching computer science to generations of students during the birth of the computer age. Don retired from Algonquin College in 1989.

In 1955, while serving in Gander, Newfoundland, Don met and married his East Coast love, Margaret (Bannister) Williamson, and it was Margaret who became the heart of their many homes as they moved across Canada and the United States on service postings. Together they raised three sons and hosted many extended family gatherings at their home in Ottawa.

Don was a student of everything - boatbuilding, woodworking, radio control aircraft, motorcycling, skiing, short-wave radio, music, computer science, and electronics. His superpower was the ability to analyze, diagnose, build, or repair almost anything (long before the internet became a source of all knowledge!). Don always had a pencil stub and a scrap of paper in his shirt pocket ready to be employed at any moment to sketch and solve any structural, electrical, mechanical, or mathematical challenge.

He earned his pilot's license in his 70s. He learned to read music, mastered three musical instruments, and took deep pleasure and pride for many years as the founder and performer in the Trillium Dixieland Band.

Don was a passionate sailor and never wandered far from water throughout his life—building and sailing his first Star-class boat on the West Coast in the 1940s and others throughout his life. Don was a member of Britannia Yacht Club for many years and was a member of the Steering Committee that brought the Nepean Sailing Club into being in the 1970s. Later, he and Margaret sailed on their boat "Mistress" (a name chosen by Margaret, not Don!) in the Thousand Islands as members of Trident Yacht Club where Don served as a board member and eventually as Commodore. Don and Margaret returned to Nepean Sailing Club in 2010, where he remained an active sailor and still owned Mistress at the time of his passing.

Don is survived by Margaret; their three sons, John (Ellen), Ian (Carolyn), Colin (Carla); and seven grandchildren, Erik (Andrea), Brian (Natasha), Trayvon, Jaden, Jeffrey, Lauren, and Ella; and three great-grandchildren, Rowan, Lucy Margaret, and Evan.