Rev. Donald "Don" R. Chisholm

Padre Don Chisholm joined RCEME at the age of 17, in 1952, and served as a vehicle technician until retiring as an MWO in 1982.

Upon retirement he attended Queen’s Theological College, graduating with a Bachelor of Theology degree in June 1985 and was then ordained as a Minister of the United Church of Canada.  He has followed a career of ministries on a professional and volunteer basis since.  He became the long-serving Padre of the RCEME Association in 1986 and has since maintained the RCEME Corps Honor Roll. That appointment was reconfirmed in 2000 when he was appointed Padre of the RCEME Corps.  Throughout, Padre Don has distinguished himself as a spiritual leader, a supporter of the needy and as a community leader.

During his military career he served in field units in New Brunswick, Ontario, and Europe, as well as in Egypt, with the United Nations Emergency Force, and in Norway, on exercise, with NATO’s ACE Mobile Force. As an MWO he served at the RCEME School in Kingston and moved with the School in its transition to CFB Borden.  While at the School, as a single father of four boys, he met and married his wife, Helen Joan Greenwood, who was then a single mother of three boys.  With the addition of their daughter Cheryl, Helen and Don successfully parented a large and dynamic family.  Subsequent postings included the Land Engineering Test Establishment in Ottawa and appointment as Company Sergeant Major of the Maintenance Company in 4 Service Battalion, Lahr, Germany.  He was always very active in community leadership activities.  He served on the Base Chapel Committee and as a Scout Leader at Kingston, Borden and Lahr, and was Sunday School Superintendent in Kingston and Borden. He was the first president of the Kingston chapter of Parents Without Partners and organized a daily teen drop-in centre and dance in Borden.  In Lahr, during three consecutive summers, he directed a one-week-long live-in bible camp for youth.

Following his ordainment, Padre Chisholm and Helen settled in Glengarry County, Ontario, in a three-point rural charge, serving parishioners in Lancaster; Summerstown and Bainsville.  In 1991, Padre Chisholm accepted a call to prison chaplaincy at the Brockville Provincial Jail. In 2000 the family moved to Kingston, where he still assists with prison chaplaincy.

Padre Don continued to volunteer extensively in both the military and civilian communities.  Among many examples, he was a volunteer visitor at the Kingston Psychiatric Hospital and at the Kingston Penitentiary, he instructed Canada Safety Council Motorcycle Operator courses, volunteered at Mount Caramel House Treatment Centre, served on violence against women  and on sexual harassment committees, and he worked with the Salvation Army.  He has assumed Padre responsibilities with the Canadian Army Veterans Motorcycle Unit, the Legion Riders of Eastern Ontario and for the Royal Canadian Legion Branch 631 in Kingston.

The Corps of RCEME runs deep in the Chisholm family. Don is the son of WO2 John F. Chisholm, RCOC(E), RCEME, and Helen is the daughter of WO2 John Greenwood, RCOC(E), RCEME.