April 1st at 8 pm
At this coming meeting, Bill Lechner will be speaking about the afore-mentioned Francon quarry in Montreal. The topics will include some insight into the geology and history of the quarry, but the main emphasis will be on the minerals, of course. He has spoken about Francon before, but this time the photos will be stacked, so the depth of field of the photomicrographs has been greatly improved. In the past year he has also learned new information about this quarry, so those of you for whom Francon is a major interest have something to which you can look forward.
Bill spent much of his adult life teaching Science, most significantly Chemistry, to high school students in Toronto’s west end. His love of Chemistry started in grade 9 when he discovered chemical formulas. Thus, mineral collecting was a natural extension of chemistry. Minerals also provided the kind of beauty that pure chemistry cannot provide. He married Karen in 1971, so they have been married for 54 years now and have two adult children. In point of fact, the last time he spoke to the GMCS was on the evening of their 54th wedding anniversary.
He and his son, Andrew, went collecting for the first time at Mont Saint-Hilaire whenAndrew was 15 years old and he fell in love with the minerals from the “Magic Mountain”. In fact, even after all these years, it is still the “Centre of the Universe” for him. His other mineralogical interests include the Aris quarry in Namibia, the Francon quarry in Montreal, the Jeffrey quarry in Asbestos and Otto Mountain in California. He has done considerable mineral trading over the years, so he has developed minor interests in other localities also. Mineral trading has provided him with knowledge about
other worldwide localities and the interesting, beautiful and rare minerals from variouslocations. He has attended many different mineral symposia, including Burlington, Brock University, Florida and California. Meeting new people who are wild about minerals is one of the joys of mineral collecting for him.