Refugee. Olympian. Family man. Vivacious. Born Aug. 30, 1941, in Fiume, Italy; died Aug. 20, 2022, in Markham, Ont.
Alex was born into a world at war, the second child of Lea and Nino Messina. He remembers carrying home-baked bread to a nearby Allied prisoner-of-war camp with his mother. In exchange, he was sometimes given a square of chocolate from the Red Cross POW care package, a real treat for young Alex.
Lea was tenacious and wanted the best for her children, and that meant a new life in Canada. After years of applications, the family arrived at Pier 21 in Halifax in October 1951. They were assigned to a DP camp near Toronto. Alex was grateful for a warm bed, new shoes and a full belly. After the Olympics, Alex focused on his work and became a well-known mechanical designer. One day in 1966, he spotted a beautiful young woman outside his Toronto home. Smitten, he engineered a meeting and asked her for a date. “No, you can’t,” Marie Maiola replied. “I am Italian, and I cannot date unless you first speak with my father.” Undeterred, Alex won over Marie’s family, and soon they were in love. A year later they married, and in 1971 they welcomed their first child, Steve.
But the trauma of Alex’s childhood never left him. Nothing was taken for granted. He loved and treasured Marie endlessly, crediting her for all the happiness in his life. He never missed an opportunity to show his sons his affection even as they grew into men, saying “the only regret I have in life is not having more kids.”
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