Port Charlotte, FL – A Kitchener businessman and his wife are dead after they succumbed to carbon monoxide poisoning at their Florida winter home last week.
Dale and Rosemary McGillivray of Kitchener spent the winter months at their home in Port Charlotte on the Gulf Coast between Sarasota and Fort Myers.
Friends in Port Charlotte knew something was wrong when the couple didn’t show up for their tee time on Wednesday.
It was unlike the avid golfers to miss an opportunity to play golf.
“Golfing was their religion,” said their youngest daughter Tamara McGillivray, 38, who lived with them in their new home in the Bridgeport area of Kitchener.
Tamara McGillivray said her parents were snowbirds who were looking forward to spending more time in Florida and travelling to Europe in their retirement.
McGillivray said the car was running with the keys left in the ignition in the garage. The garage door was closed.
“It was a freak accident. They left the car on by mistake,” she said.
McGillivray said police told her it was Tuesday night and the couple died in the bedroom overnight.
The Port Charlotte Fire department confirmed that it was called to the residence and that the couple’s death is under investigation by the Port Charlotte Sheriff’s Office.
The bodies were returned to Kitchener on Sunday.
Son-in-law Don Riffel said his in-laws had left for Florida the day after Christmas and were set to return home in May.
They loved spending the winter months in the sunny south and had been back often since buying the property in the Punta Gorda area about eight years ago.
Dale McGillivray, 61, was looking forward to many more golf games in the sunshine state. Three years ago, he sold his business, McGillivray & Sons Contractors Ltd.
He was still helping out and promised the new owners he would do so for five years.
“He was well known throughout the construction industry. He was dedicated to his work,” said Hugh Fulford, a foreman at McGillivray & Sons, employed by the company for 27 years.
Rose McGillivray, 67, also worked in the business, handling the billing, payroll and acquiring permits.
McGillivray was a pioneer in creating an innovative pipe-bursting system. He developed his own trenchless technology for bursting and replacing underground utility pipes.
McGillivray first read about the procedure in a trade magazine and then went to a conference in Washington, D.C., to learn more. That was 1991.
At the time he was running Archie’s construction for his father. A few years later he would sell almost all of his dad’s equipment, except for a single backhoe, and created most of his own equipment.
He worked for the City of Waterloo and credited working with a company from western Canada that also used the same technology with giving him the confidence to strike out on his own.
The pipe-bursting technology replaces sewer pipe laterals, the section connecting drains in homes to mains under the street. His system would go into the underground sewer pipes, breaking them and then dragging in replacement pipes behind it.
Fulford said McGillivray was a “no-nonsense” kind of guy who expected those around him to work as hard as he did.
“He was a great guy. If you put 110 per cent in, you get 110,” Fulford recalls McGillivray’s motto.
“He became like family to me,” Fulford said. “He was looking forward to his retirement to relax and enjoy his home in Florida.”
Dale and Rose McGillivray are survived by three children: Tamara, Candace and Steven and four grandchildren.
Visitation will be held at Henry Walser Funeral Home in Kitchener on Wednesday from 7 to 9 p.m. and Thursday from 2 to 4 p.m. and 7 to 9 p.m. The funeral service will be held on Good Friday at 1 p.m. at the funeral home