The loss of a quiet pillar of strength: we are saddened to announce the passing of Dien Wen Chen, our beloved Husband, Father, Grandfather and friend, peacefully at home in his sleep at the age of 96.

Survived by his wife of 58 years, Hui-Chin Chen, daughters Victoria (Michael) and Christine (Rasheed) and grandsons, David Pau and Ammon Saleuddin.

Born in Wuxi, People's Republic of China, Dien Wen was the second youngest and only son of the five children of Tong Huangong and Tong Yunzhi. He emigrated to Taiwan with the Kuomintang during the civil war, where he fulfilled his military service as an airplane mechanic - making full use of his love of problem solving and puzzles. His background as an airplane mechanic made Dien Wen, by all appearances an extremely cerebral and intellectual person, surprisingly handy with electronics and home repairs.

Dien Wen was the second of his family to attend university and graduate - going on to obtain a Ph.D from the University of British Columbia in mathematics. By nature curious, with a love of learning, he could read and speak German, English and Mandarin, despite being a man of few words.

He passed on his love of reading (English and Chinese newspapers, the Economist, Time magazine, biographies and anything by Tom Clancy) to his daughters, nurturing their love of reading by making weekly trips with them to the pubic library. Dien Wen spread that love of reading, and belief in accessibility, by importing the first Chinese print setting machine to manually produce translations of English texts into Chinese.

He believed in the importance of education and lifelong learning and, to the end, kept his brain engaged by solving puzzles (jigsaw puzzles and Rush Hour were a shared family favourite) and playing games with the family.

Dien Wen instilled strong moral values in his children and grandchildren, repeating that "honesty and integrity" were the most important character traits. However, the greatest character traits that he taught, he did by example: love, kindness and generosity. He was selfless, always putting others ahead of himself, and will be sorely missed.

Dien Wen was a long-time supporter of Covenant House, Hospital for Sick Children and Trillium Health Centre. In lieu of flowers, please consider making a donation to one of those three charities.