As former President of Science for Peace, I came to know John and Lois Dove as among the most devoted supporters of the cause of peace. John’s idea of devoted service was to work unsparingly in everything he undertook to do. I would sometimes worry that he did not spare his health in the spirit of dedication with which he addressed the various tasks he undertook for Science for Peace.
Many are the memories that remain with his friends of the undertakings that would not have been achieved without John’s dedicated and exemplary service. Perhaps most notably we remember how he led a team of devoted peacemakers in organizing and carrying through the conference last fall on how to restrict the military activities in the Arctic and increase peaceful cooperation. The result was an outstanding success. Just before John left for Africa, he wrote a letter to the Globe and Mail pleading the cause of the Innu being harassed by the low-flying exercises over Goose Bay.
John’s devotion to Peace is perhaps better expressed in poetry than in my banal prose:
The desire of the moth for the star Of then the night for the morrow The devotion to something afar From the sphere of our sorrow.
The John and Lois Dove Memorial Lectureship
The John and Lois Dove Memorial Lectureship has been established to reflect their varied interests. Those wishing to remember them may make donations to the Department of Development and University Relations, 21 King’s College Circle, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, making cheques payable to the University and marking them “John and Lois Dove Memorial Lecture”.