Jacki Susan Hayes

Sunday morning was her day of the week! Leaving father’s house on Malcolm Street in London Ontario, skipping and jumping along the side walk leading into a narrow pathway. When coming out there it was a short stroll to St Michael and all Angels Church.

In preschool she found her love for Jesus and could hardly wait to hear more about him in her Anglican Church. Her feet dangling above grounds, the last row was her chosen spot. It allowed her to rush out before the slower adults moved. Father John (Jack) and brother Michael used to wait for her for lunch. Father had become a great cook and a caring parent after mother Gladys had left the family behind a year earlier. In those days a ten year older step sister Linda plagued her and brother Michael even more than what mother had accomplished. Father was her great rescue but also had to handle his little car mechanic shop. Often she would spend time with her beloved grandmother Bertha trimming her garden beds and helping with kitchen work. Early on, Jacki would start her work life, earning for serving in a restaurant while attending high school and studying for her university degree. Quickly she advanced to be managing the customer orders in a sail and awning manufacturing company. Later, Jacki headed the human resources bureau at Sunlife Insurance. What came then, was her real pride. Her own bedding shop opened beside the Elora Mill in 1994. It showed her taste and style. Soon she was asked to take over a lifestyle column in the London local newspaper. Jacki was a lover and collector of art as well. With talent, she learned from two mentors brush handling and watercolour arrangements after nature and domestic surroundings. Many of her works sold immediately. Even more important and much longer was her love for cooking. Coming from father’s kitchen, she knew real love is in the food. She now leaves more than one hundred cookbooks behind and a husband painfully stricken after fourteen years of a dedication for one another.

Jacki lived in London, Kitchener Waterloo and Elora. In those days she was married to Bill Yeo for two decades. A good husband who took her on business travels around the wold. They moved to Salt Spring Island where cancer claimed his life. Moving to Port Alberni in 2021, a house on Denman Island got planned. Her last wish is to be buried at the Natural Cemetery on Denman Island. Jacki is the last of her Hayes Family without kids of her own.

From lovers to best friends, missing you Jacki with deep gratitude and stinging in my heart, husband -Martin-

May your soul be loved in Heaven.