Hank Kroeker’s Legacy Story

Hank Kroeker was the first person in his family to be born in Canada. Three older siblings, John, Aggie and Kay and his parents John and Elizabeth had been born in the Ukraine. Following Hank’s birth there were two more sisters added to the family – Betty and Elsie.

The Kroeker’s first home in Canada was in Northern Alberta, in the small town of La Glace just outside of Grande Prairie. They arrived in June, 1948 and Hank was born that October in the neighbouring town of Hythe. “My mother’s sister had moved there in 1926 and sponsored the family to move to Canada. Ukraine in the 1940s, for a German family, was a place you didn’t want to be if you could find a way to be somewhere else, so we were very fortunate,” Hank said.

After three years of enduring the cold Alberta winters, the family moved to Chilliwack because Hank’s mother had another sister living there. John and Elizabeth bought a small farm – only two and a half acres. They started with 2,000 chickens, 1 milking cow, a few pigs as well as a large raspberry field. Hank recalled, “For 25 years I couldn’t eat raspberries because all of us kids and my mom spent most of the summer months picking raspberries. I would see the other kids going off to have fun in the summer but all we had to look forward to was work. We’d go work for a neighbour picking strawberries, then pick raspberries, and then it was time to go back to school.”

Hank graduated from Chilliwack High School and then received a Bachelor of Commerce degree at the University of British Columbia, where he graduated in 1973 and then stared working for KPMG in Vancouver, earning his CA degree in 1975. When KPMG bought an office in Abbotsford in the early 1970s, Hank was 1 of 3 associates who came from Vancouver to help run the Abbotsford office. He retired as a Partner from KPMG in 2007 after 34 years with the firm.

Hank’s wife Pam worked for the Bank of Montreal in Abbotsford before taking on the responsibilities of a full time mom. Hank and Pam have three grown children and six grandchildren. Their daughter Andrea and her husband Trevor have 3 children living in Keremeos. Their daughter Brittany and her husband Ian have 2 children and continue to live in Abbotsford. Following in her father’s footsteps, Brittany articled with KPMG in Vancouver and joined their Abbotsford office in 2013. Hank and Pam’s son, Jonathan, is a medical doctor in Chilliwack. He and his wife, Melissa, have 1 child.

Hank has been a volunteer with the Abbotsford Community Foundation since 2006, serving nine years as a Board member, and served on the Executive as Treasurer for a number of years. He has chaired the Planned Giving Committee – a committee he continues to serve on, as well as sitting on the Investment committee and for a time on the Nominating & Governance committee. He’s also served as a Board member, and President of Big Brothers Big Sisters of the Fraser Valley where he had been a “big brother” before his children were born, Treasurer of the Lions Club, and many years on the Board of the Abbotsford Chamber of Commerce, including one year as President. He also was the volunteer Director of Administration of the Abbotsford 2016 BC Summer Games. Hank is one of Abbotsford’s community champions.

As the undersigned, I promise to contribute to the future of the community of Abbotsford through a bequest to the Abbotsford Community Foundation.