A personal Bill McMurchie story upon the passing of the late, legendary Pointe-Claire mayor who left us on New Year’s Day at age 93:

Some years ago, the city — my hometown — was replacing street signs with newer, more durable and more visible versions. The old signs, which were heavy metal with black lettering and trim on a white background, were to be removed and sold, the proceeds benefiting the public library.

I had grown up on Kipling Avenue, a six-house Pointe-Claire cul-de-sac, carried into No. 105 in a car seat in November 1957 at seven months of age. Our family was the first on the brand new street; I lived in that house until I moved to Ottawa in October 1980, my wife and I returning to a different Pointe-Claire address in 1988. I sold the family bungalow in 2003, a few months after the death of my mother, having lost my father there, in his sleep, in 1978.

Where many streets in Pointe-Claire have several street signs at intersections, there was just one KIPLING AVE. on a single post.

In conversation, I shared a few Kipling stories with Bill as the street sign sale neared, expressing my disappointment that work would have me out of town that day, unable to try to buy that piece of personal history.

I returned home after my business trip a few days after the sale, answering the doorbell. It was Bill with the solitary KIPLING AVE. sign, which, without my knowledge or request, he had purchased for me, knowing how much it meant to me.

To this day, the sign hangs on the summertime fence in our yard, a few kilometres from my childhood street. Looking at the sign, I am reminded of Bill’s kindness and generosity.

Dave Stubbs is a Pointe-Claire native who, since 2016, has been a columnist and historian for the National Hockey League at NHL.com. He began his journalism career with the weekly News & Chronicle in 1976, and during three decades at the Montreal Gazette, worked as a columnist, feature writer, and sports editor.