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Colonel Roger Almond Cunningham, CD, OMM, OStJ (6 October 1926 - ) is a retired Canadian medical administrator. He is credited with participating in early high altitude research along with others like XXX, XXX, and XXX. Amongst his other early endeavours, he was one of the first Canadians to test centrifugal force and oxygen deprivation on the human body.

Biography

Cunningham was born in Pubnico, Yarmouth County, Nova Scotia, Canada, the son of successful entrepreneur Almond D. Cunningham. During his formative years he helped his father with business matters that included the sale of paint, twine, insurance, and Irish Moss. His father’s Irish Moss business was in fact the first of its kind in Nova Scotia, and operated successfully for many years. Throughout that time he also spent many of his summers on Cape Sable Island helping his grandfather, Daniel Cunningham, and sometimes heading out on the water with local fishermen. Daniel and his wife Eusebia (Smith) Cunningham owned and lived on the southernmost point of the island in a small community known as The Hawk.

After graduating from the two-room schoolhouse located adjacent to his home, Cunningham attended Acadia University in Wolfville, Kings County, Nova Scotia. While there he began the study of medicine, but found it was not what he really wanted to do, so transferred to Provincial Normal School (later renamed the Nova Scotia Teachers College), where he quickly graduated as a teacher. For the next couple of years he taught school in Yarmouth, Nova Scotia, drove a bus for Acadian Bus Lines, and even tried his hand at singing. Acadian Bus Lines went out of business in 2012 after eighty years of operations .

Early military career

Colonel Roger Cunningham

Later military career

Later life

Family

Roger Almond Cunningham was born 6 October 1926 in his parent’s home in Pubnico, Nova Scotia. He is the eldest of three boys born to Almond Dexter Cunningham (1896-1974) and Rita Paige Selig (1906-2009). His brothers are Ward Wendell Cunningham (born 1928 in Pubnico, Nova Scotia) and Sterling Fancy Cunningham (born 1929 in Yarmouth, Nova Scotia). Ward still lives in Pubnico and is a successful entrepreneur and achieved a very high rank in the Freemasons. Sterling moved with his family to White Rock, British Columbia after a long career as a film editor with the Canadian Broadcasting Company in Halifax, Nova Scotia.

Almond Cunningham was born on The Hawk, Cape Sable Island, Nova Scotia, and was the 3rd great-grandson of Archelaus Smith (1734-1821), an early settler who came to Nova Scotia from Cape Cod, Massachusetts in 1761. Cape Sable Island currently plays host to a the Archelaus Smith Museum, and most of the area residents can trace their ancestry to him.

Rita Selig was born in Southwest Cove (later part of Port Medway), Queens County, Nova Scotia. Her family came to the area in the mid 1700’s as part of the wave of Foreign Protestants who left Germany and the surrounding areas in response to an offer of free land and a year’s rations.