Volume 7 • 2020 • Issue 1

N ews and E vents 17 Issue 1 | 2020 | Dr. Crawford with historical dental artifacts from his and Olga’s collection. Dr. Crawford, CDA president 1984–85, gives the CDA Presidential Chain of Office to Dr. Bradley W. Holmes, CDA president 1985–86. In 1995, Dr. Crawford in his office at CDA reading an issue of the Journal, of which he was editor-in-chief. Dr. Crawford in Winnipeg in 1939. Dr. Crawford in 1964. Olga and Dr. Crawford in 2000. Olga and Dr. Ralph Crawford married on November 8, 1952. (L. to r.): Dr. Crawford, Olga, daughter Aileen, son Patrick, and daughter-in-law Donna. Olga and Dr. Crawford. 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 In 1954, television came to Saskatchewan and “the bottom dropped out of the drive- in theatre business,” says Crawford. He considered becoming a cleric and served as a lay clergyman for the United Church of Canada for five years. During this time, at a visit to his dentist who was also a friend, Dr. Crawford had an epiphany. “I told him, ‘I don’t want to teach, and I don’t want to preach. I don’t know what I want to do,’” Dr. Crawford says. When his friend suggested dentistry, Dr. Crawford said that he was too old. But his friend pointed to his degree from McGill on the wall and said, “I was 34 when I graduated.” Dr. Crawford went home that night and couldn’t sleep. “I just tossed and turned” he says. “By morning, I knew.” A Decade of Education Dr. Crawford went to the local Moose Jaw high school to earn enough credits so that he could apply to university. He was the only high school student, he says, “whose wife met him after four o’clock pushing a baby carriage.” Olga worked as a secretary to a theatre manager. The couple had two children, Patrick and Aileen. Through the College of Notre Dame in Wilcox, Saskatchewan, where he studied with Reverend Father Athol Murray, Dr. Crawford earned a University of Ottawa Bachelor of Arts degree. “The president of Famous Players arranged for me to go to college for nothing for those 3 years, if I agreed to run the drive-in during the summer,” says Dr. Crawford. In 1964, at the age of 37, Dr. Crawford graduated from the Faculty of Dentistry at the University of Manitoba. Dr. Crawford credits his ability to get an education to Olga, who “juggled raising a family with working 12 hour days, handled the family finances and even cut the lawn!” Working in Winnipeg, then Ottawa Dr. Crawford practised dentistry in Winnipeg for 24 years. Olga often worked at reception and as the office manager. Dr. Crawford first worked in the St. Vital neighborhood in 1964–65, then he joined a group practice at the Tuxedo Dental Office, where he worked until 1978 when he opened his own office in the Medical Arts building on Kennedy 9 His key phrase at CDA whenever you asked him how he was doing, he always said, ‘Never better in my whole life.’ – Linda Teteruck 7 8