More than a dozen Guelph Victors attended the burial service for Usher Posluszny in Woodlawn Memorial Park on October 14. They were remembering the runner who was inseparable from his good friend Victor Matthews, who died 13 years ago. Posluszny was found at his home on Oct. 10, after apparently dying in his sleep. He was 70 years of age.
Vic Matthews, our club’s first coach and now our namesake, in a 5K masters race with Usher Posluszny (right) in 1989. They were fast, finishing just two seconds apart — Vic in 16:47 and Usher in 16:49, each placing second in their 40-44 (Usher) and 45-49 (Vic) age categories at the Ontario masters championships that year. (Their singlets say “Guelph Oaks Athletic Club”, a broader athletic club that many Guelph runners belonged to prior to the Victors becoming a club.) Photo: George Aitken
Usher Posluszny was memorialized by colleagues, friends and students at the graveside gathering last week. He led a rich life, with passions that bridged the arts and sciences. He was a professor of botany at the University of Guelph for his entire career. And he cultivated an ornate bonsai garden in his home off Waterloo Avenue. But he also had intense interests in wine, music (especially opera), visual art (he became a collector in his 60s), travel, calligraphy and the performing arts (he frequently attended Stratford productions).
Current Victor Luke Hohenadel remembers meeting “Vic and Usher” 37 years ago as a 20-something runner looking to get better. He remembers getting dropped by their hard pace on long runs at first, but he came back, and each week held on a little longer, until he could keep pace with the two fleet 30-somethings.
Usher Posluszny stopped running in his late 50s, because of knee problems reports Hohenadel, but he still came out to the Victors track workouts as recently as about 2009, to help with timing. Athletically, he switched to tennis in his seventh decade. And it was a missed tennis date that led people to his house two weeks ago, finding him lifeless but peaceful.
He leaves his sister Ruthie, brother-in-law Avi, and a niece and nephew. He had no children and wasn’t married.