Dec 5, 1950 - Jan 13, 2022

Yvonn Sabbas Monteiro was born on December 5th, 1950 in Nairobi, Kenya. He shared many childhood memories with his classmates at Dr. Ribeiro Goan School, he continued to keep in contact with his classmates for all of his life. Coming to Canada as a teenager, he started his career with the railroad at the age of 17, thanks to his brother-in-law, Aloysius. Yvonn was the youngest of his three siblings. His sisters Veronica and Zerina, brother, Wilfred, along with his in-laws, helped him a lot while he was growing up, he returned the favor, however, he could do so in gratitude.

His job at CN Rail really toughened him up, he recalled the hardest times of his life was working outside in the cold rain and snow storms all night in the big rail-yards.

Coming to Canada, he didn’t have much, but he worked hard to play even harder... In his mid 20s, Yvonn built a Formula Vee race car by himself and was able to obtain a lap record at his home track, a lap record that would not be beat until about 10 years later. His nephew, Trevor, was his main help and supporter during these memorable times. Yvonn was the first Goan race car driver in Canada.

In the 1980s, he met the girl of his dreams at a dance and realized that all this fun with racing had to be dialled down to have a family. You would see Yvonn and Patricia happily dancing it up at every musical event they participated in. As their sons, Sean and Nelson, grew through infancy, he took them to theme parks and on random road trips with extended family and friends, touring much of Ontario. Yvonn worked at the railroad by day but always had a brief car project he’d be working on when he returned home. Also having Sean and Nelson talk his ears off at the same time... there certainly was no resting for him with those two around!

Yvonn’s passion for racing returned in the 1990s, he bought a van and toured Quebec and Ontario with his wife and kids, hauling a Honda racecar on a trailer behind. He rivaled highly experienced Quebec drivers, only having one high-speed accident (that was no fault of his). Yvonn was placed high in the rankings, made lots of friends and gave his family quite the exciting experience.

He loved exercising and pushing himself mentally and physically, going on long bike rides almost daily and sharing these rides with his sons, nephew, niece and daughter in-law as time went on. Yvonn was a skilled man of many trades and he was sure to pass his skills and knowledge down to his sons.

When Yvonn retired from CN Rail after 37 years, he learned to play the guitar by ear and spent almost every family get-together uniting us with singing and rhythm. He said that the 15 years he spent in retirement were the best times of his life, doing lots of traveling with Patricia and experiencing new things. His most favorite and recent projects that he built with his sons was “hot rodding” out their red family van, and beautifully rebuilding a motor for his 50 year old Datsun – which was labelled “The Dad-Son Project”, it was the same kind of car he picked Patricia up with for their very first date.

He wanted to have the biggest gathering for his 70th birthday in 2020, but unfortunately due to provincial lockdowns, there was no gathering to be had.

Yvonn loved his retirement part-time job at Avis even more than working for the railroad, He worked for Avis rent-a-car for almost 15 years... He was a strong souled man who was not known to cry, but when he had to make the unfortunate phone call to Avis that he could no longer return to work due to his health condition, he was deeply saddened and admittedly shed his tears.

Coming to terms with his new reality and looking back on his life, he realized that he had a great run with almost no regret. He was so thankful to have his daughter in-law, Ruthchel, and granddaughter, Chelsie, and for the time he was able to spend with them. He was very thankful for his wife and his sons for their efforts of taking care of him and keeping him going, especially from Patricia (his angel); she was his life-long companion and primary care taker to the end. In his final weeks of life, right down to his final hours, while barely being able to talk, he was grateful of having the ability to express his feelings through text message world-wide, by communicating with his family and old friends from school and work.

His final words were that he wanted to be cremated, with his ashes to be scattered at his favourite homerace track, Mosport... Corner 5. Going out like the true racer he was.

Yvonn will tremendously be missed by many, we will not forget him and the wonderful memories.

The Monteiro family