110 THE ADVOCATE
VOL. 80 PART 1 JANUARY 2022
owned and took the family on a year-long tour of Europe. In typical early
’70s fashion, they purchased a VW Westfalia camper van and travelled
though all the major European capitals. Knowing Bill’s love of nice hotels,
the writer assumes this adventure was a Heather decision.
Upon the family’s return to Canada in 1971, Bill was in need of work and
accepted a position as a junior partner with the solicitor Casey Wood in
Kelowna. Wood had a very busy practice serving a large number of business
owners, builders and developers. A couple of years into their successful
partnership, Wood died suddenly of a brain aneurysm while jogging one
morning. Well-liked by all of Wood’s clients, Bill instantly became the
busiest solicitor in Kelowna.
Building on the Wood legacy, Bill went on to become one of the most
respected and liked members of the Kelowna bar. During the next 30-plus
years, Bill was involved at the start of some of the most significant and
largest land transactions in the Okanagan Valley such as the Landmark
office district (seven towers) and what would eventually become the Wilden
housing development (2,500 homes). Other leading practitioners in the
Okanagan would often seek Bill out for advice on how to handle thorny subdivision
issues or how to structure complicated multi-party ventures. He
quickly differentiated himself though his skill and work ethic.
Unfortunately, while his practice was thriving, his marriage was not. He
and Heather divorced in 1974, and Bill now had no choice but to find time
for both work and helping to raise his two boys. For some 12 years, Bill was
one of Kelowna’s most eligible bachelors but was lifted from this sorrowful
state in 1986 by meeting the love of his life, Ursula. Ursula gave Bill a new
focus outside of work, and he and “Uschi” would enjoy many years of wonderful
times with friends and family and travelling together in North America
and abroad. Eventually, Bill retired from the firm of Petraroia Langford
Rush LLP in 2006.
Like many professionals who have been busy for most of their careers,
Bill did have a slight dread as to what he could do to occupy his time during
retirement. He did not wait long for the answer. Shortly after Bill retired,
one of his clients had the misfortune of vacationing in Thailand during the
tsunami of 2007. For those who may not recall, that tsunami took some
230,000 lives in a matter of hours. Bill’s client was included in that terrible
loss of life. Bill had been appointed the executor of the client’s estate, and
at the time of appointment, the client (as extremely wealthy people are
prone to do) severely underrepresented the magnitude of his holdings. Bill
then embarked on what would become a five-year full-time job in dealing
with an estate that took him to various parts of Asia, Europe and North