Ernest Randolph Samuels

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Ernest Randolph Samuels

(Sammy)

Ernest Randolph Samuels (Sammy) was born in the village of Annandale, East Coast Demerara, in British Guiana, now Guyana, on April 27, 1938. He was the only son born to his mother, Evangeline Victoria Sheppard, and the sixth and last child of his father, Nathaniel Samuels. He passed away on September 30, 2025.

His early education was spent in various private primary schools until the age of ten, when he was admitted to the Caribbean’s leading boys’ school, Queens College, in Georgetown, Guyana. After finishing school, he worked for five years in his father’s business, a wholesale/retail motor parts business and chain of service stations. In 1962, he married Halima Mazaharally. Following political riots in Georgetown, during which large parts of the family business were lost to citywide fires, he moved to Dublin, Ireland, where he was admitted to the Royal College of Surgeons. He graduated in 1968. During this period of time, his first son Omar was born in 1962 in Georgetown, followed by his second son Emile, born in Dublin in 1967.

Following graduation, the family moved to London, Ontario, where he did a rotating internship at Victoria Hospital, followed by six months as a junior resident in surgery, and then six months as a junior resident in medicine at Westminster Hospital. He then spent six months as a junior resident in anaesthetics at St. Joseph’s Hospital, after which he was awarded a Diploma in Anaesthetics for General Practitioners.

In 1971, he moved the family to Gladstone, Manitoba where he became a General Medical Practitioner. While working in Gladstone, he would often assist Dr. Jakobson with surgical procedures at Neepawa Hospital. After six years in Gladstone, he worked as a General Practitioner in Rossburn, Manitoba for eight months. In 1974, the family adopted a daughter, Shazia. He then returned to Guyana to work in the Emergency Department at the Georgetown Hospital, where he was eventually made head of the department.

In 1985, he moved his family back to Canada to run a solo general practice in MacGregor, Manitoba, where he continued to work until his retirement in 2011. During the time working in MacGregor, he worked as an anaesthetist for surgical procedures with Dr. Beveridge in Carberry, and then later as an assistant to the General Surgeon, Dr. James Ross, in the Portage and District General Hospital.

In 1986, he lost his eldest son Omar to a traffic accident, after which life for the family was never the same. In 1994, tragedy struck again when Halima, his wife of 32 years, succumbed to Parkinson’s Disease.

Sometime thereafter, he became a member of the Winnipeg Steel Orchestra and remained an active member of the band for many enjoyable years. It was here that he met and became enamoured with Sajida Ali, a Trinidadian widow with three adult children of her own. They married in 2006. She was an instant and beloved part of the family.

In addition to taking great pride in the care of his patients, Sammy loved to entertain, and hosted many dinner parties, and especially “green eggs and ham” breakfasts, for family and friends.

Sammy has specifically requested that there not be a funeral or any sort of memorial service. “Please, no fuss, no flowers.” Accordingly, he was buried without fanfare at the MacGregor cemetery, close to his deceased son and wives. He is survived by his children Shazia and Emile, as well as his daughter-in-law Edith and grandchildren, Ren and Omar.

The family would like to thank you all most sincerely for your condolences. In addition, the family would like to thank the staff at Riverwood Square, where Sammy enjoyed the last three years of his life, as well as the staff of the surgical ward at the Portage and District General Hospital, where in his last days, he was kept comfortable and well cared for.

If desired, donations in his memory may be made to the MacGregor Health Foundation Inc, PO Box 250, MacGregor, MB, R0H 0R0 https://www.canadahelps.org/en/charities/macgregor-health-foundation-inc/.

A public Celebration of Life will be held on Saturday, October 18, 2025 from 4:00 to 6:00 pm at the Heartland Multiplex in MacGregor, MB.

Clarkes’s Funeral Home Gladstone/MacGregor in care of arrangements.

As published in Winnipeg Free Press on Oct 04, 2025