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Patient, methodical, always unflappable, William Alexander Dempsey helped create the southeast Scarborough community he lived in and over six decades was a devoted defender of its creeks, waterfront and character.

Friends and dignitaries will gather Sunday to honour Dempsey, founding president of the Centennial Community and Recreation Association, who died Aug. 15 at his birthplace of Carberry, Manitoba.

He was 89.

Though he filled a variety of civil service posts during his career, Dempsey is best known to neighbours for his work with the CCRA, formed in 1949 by members of the Centennial Road School's Home and School Association.

Spearheaded by Dempsey, a Second World War veteran who studied social work and town planning, the CCRA helped lay out the Centennial community's official plan and zoning. "Much of the way our community exists today is due to the efforts of Bill over the years," current CCRA president Jeff Forsyth wrote for the group's newsletter this month.

Dempsey took a leading role even into retirement, where he remained a source of information, advice and well-reasoned letters to officials.

Parts of his vision, such as an underpass under Port Union Road and a waterfront trail park, took a half-century to achieve.

"Perseverance is key," Dempsey told The Scarborough Mirror in 2004, when the community threw him a going-away party before he left for Manitoba with wife Evelyn.

"It's goodness for the community that we are seeking and the opportunity for people to live well."

A conservationist before it was fashionable, Dempsey battled to keep Centennial Creek in a somewhat natural state. The creek today flows freely through William Alexander Dempsey Eco Park, a green space near Meadowvale and Ellesmere roads named for him in 1999.

Dempsey believed passionately in the potential of the area's Lake Ontario waterfront, cut off from the community by a rail line, and brought former Toronto mayors David Crombie and Mel Lastman out to see it.

Last October, Dempsey returned briefly from Manitoba and was driven along the first completed half of a waterfront trail, from the mouth of Highland Creek to Port Union, which will soon stretch to the Rouge River.

"He was a very satisfied person to see that his dream was a reality," Forsyth recalled this week.

Dempsey never lost touch with the community even in his final years, said Ward 44 (Scarborough East) Councillor Ron Moeser, who said he went before the Ontario Municipal Board with Dempsey many times and never saw him get flustered or worked up.

His activism helped maintain the character of the community, Moeser said.

"All of us counted on his fairness and unselfish commitment to values that all of us hold dear."

The Royal Canadian Legion Branch 258, of which Dempsey was an honorary member, is inviting the public to a memorial service at 2 p.m. Sunday in Centennial-Rouge United Church at Kingston and Ellesmere roads.

It's a fitting venue: Dempsey was instrumental in keeping the 1891 Gothic revival church open when the congregation was dwindling and the denomination wanted to close and amalgamate it, said Rev. Richard Kimball.

Dempsey worked hard to keep the people's interest in the church up when a lot of congregants were discouraged, Kimball remembered this week. "He'd be talking about the need to keep it open, its historical past and the work the church still needed to do in the community."

Noted Clancy Delbarre, president of the Highland Creek Community Association: "Politicians came and went over five decades, but Bill remained steadfast in his daily commitment to the community. Through thick and thin, through setbacks, Bill kept his enthusiasm and optimism and carried on the good fight."

Dempsey is survived by children Bill, David and Shawna and by Evelyn, his second wife. (A street off Meadowvale Road, Jean Dempsey Gate, is named for his first wife).

The CCRA which represents 3,500 homes in the area between Highland Creek, the lake, Port Union Road and Highway 2A, remains active and according to its members, the city's oldest continuous association of its kind.