Growing up as the youngest of six children, Beth Oakley (BA 1990, B.Ed 1998, M.Ed 2005) didn’t always get to hear her father’s stories.

Following her 2022 retirement from the University as director of the International Student Centre, she started meeting with her father to record and write episodes from his life. The resulting book, entitled I Wouldn’t Have Missed It, brought to press through Walkerville Publishing, will enjoy a launch next week.

Oakley describes her father, James O’Neill, as a natural storyteller.

“As the founder of interior design in Windsor Essex County, he has been the driving force behind the most beautiful interiors in this region,” she says. “As a teenager, he hired a ‘decorator’ to help him select wallpaper and paint for his dilapidated childhood bedroom in a Walkerville townhouse. Thus began a lifelong flair for interior design.”

O’Neill shared stories of a teenage brush with the law resulting from a cigarette smuggling operation, his brief career as a wedding planner, being left for dead on a freeway in Detroit, and reinventing himself during mid-life personal struggles.

“At age 92, he still feels that he’s loving life,” Oakley says.

He will read some of the stories during the launch, from 5 to 8 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 26, at the Giovanni Caboto Club, 2175 Parent Avenue at Tecumseh Road. Find more details on the event website.