History of Weber Family

Autobiography of our family

Okay, so maybe some of you out there want to know a bit more about me and my family. As much as I find it awkward to talk about myself, I'll give it a try. The web is PEOPLE, not data, and people should all have a good story to tell. Some of them might even be true.

As much as I answer to Wild Man, my real name is Dave (actually David, but only my wife calls me that) Weber. I am pushing 55 years old (well, okay pulling), and have a wife, Grace to whom I've been married for about 34 years (it only seems like more).

We have a daughter named Jennifer, who is the mother of my grandson David, and a son named Jonathan. Jenny is a lot like her mother. That is to say that if she isn't on the phone, she's out shopping with her friends. Jonathan is far too much like his Dad, i.e. if there is a
way of finding trouble, he'll find it. A curse upon whomever invented heredity! All of our family works for the company.

We live in Surrey, British Columbia, which is a suburb of Vancouver. British Columbia is the westernmost province of Canada (can 90% of you point north and say thataway).

I am an American by birth, born and raised (or was that raised hell) in Saint Paul, Minnesota. After I graduated from good old Harding High School, I enlisted for 4 years in the U.S. Marine Corps.

My final duty station was in Hawaii, where I met my wife to be. She was lost while out shopping (now there's a surprise). Someone had directed her into this disreputable bar where all us Jarheads used to go drinking because no respectable person would ever be around to object to our behavior. Needless to say, I felt obligated to rescue her and guide her to some of the better places around the island.

One thing led to another, and the next year on Valentines Day I was the NCO on watch, and having very little else to do I called her - collect of course, and proposed. Shortly thereafter I was finished with my enlistment, and flew to meet her in Vancouver.

After arriving, we discovered that the U.S. Government offered little chance of my bringing my wife to live in the States. America's loss is Canada's gain. Grace was an emergency room triage nurse in the busiest hospital in Western Canada for over 20 years - a somewhat scarce skill. We now own and operate a business which contributes in it's own small way to the vibrant Vancouver economy. Since Canada welcomed me with open arms (at least it wasn't swinging fists) we decided to stay up here.

We settled into a small town in the interior of B.C. named Kelowna. One of the most scenic and recreational activity filled places I've ever been. Wonderful place for a vacation, but a lousy hick town to find work in, especially for an unskilled fellow. So I decided that an education would serve me well, and between a few years there at Okanagan College, and a few years down here in Vancouver at Simon Fraser University, I managed to get my Bachelor Degree in Business Administration. I feel obliged to point out that this was not something that I did alone, rather it was something that we accomplished as a family effort.

I had done a few salesman type jobs to get by over the years, and a friend of mine suggested I try this small blueprint company for work. This was a remarkable success for both myself and for the blueprint company where I worked for about 10 years. In 1995 I started my own business - WMW Reprographics Ltd. Now my family and I work together, printing everyones drawings.

A lot of folks ask me about the Wild Man pseudonym. The truth (At least my version of it) is that it was a nickname given to me while in the U.S. Marine Corps. You see, in the Corps, almost everyone has a nickname, designed to inspire the proper war-like personality.

The name started to fade from memory after I became a civilian until about 1985 when I first began modeming. My first call was to one of the new high speed 300 baud boards called The Castle Arrggh. Real names were not encouraged, so being on the spot while filling out a validation form, I went with my old nickname, and everything seemed to grow from there.

Now it has evolved to the point where my business is named Wild Man Weber Reprographics, or WMW Reprographics for short.

That was history, and the rest is yet to be written. If you are really bored, click here to see some pics of our family tree