Kathleen Reid

Kathleen (Kay) Reid was born in February 1928 in a small farmhouse north of Wapella, Saskatchewan. She was the sixth of seven children born to Jim and Clara Thompson, who had immigrated from Yorkshire just the year before. Life was hard for the family through the Dirty Thirties, but Kathleen loved those early years, stoically enduring the hardships while reveling in life's simple pleasures.

She walked to a one-room schoolhouse from Grades 1 through 10 and boarded in Wapella for Grades 11 and 12. The summer she graduated, she completed a three-week course that qualified her to teach school. She then began her first teaching job, teaching eight grades in another one-room country schoolhouse, 50 mostly gravel miles away across the border in Manitoba. In her own words, she described that momentous time:

"In August 1947 I arrived in the Bardal district to teach school. I boarded with Ken and Glady Reid until spring---then with Edna and Percy. In the meantime I fell for a local bachelor and Ross and I were married 3 years later. It didn't take me long to get to know the whole kit and caboodle of the Reid clan---brothers, sisters, cousins, uncles and aunts. What a tribe!! But I loved them all."

After completing her teaching degree at the Manitoba Normal School in 1949, she taught for another year before she and Ross were married and settled on their farm in the Bardal district. She spent the next 17 years as a farm wife, raising their three children—Allan, Carol, and Paul. In 1967, she and Ross moved the family to Vernon, British Columbia, where a new chapter began.

Leaving behind the large extended family she loved in southwestern Manitoba was difficult, but she soon made many friends in Vernon. She found community in the neighbourhood where they bought their home, at the United Church they attended, and eventually at Spallumcheen Golf Course, where she was a member for more than 40 years. She also taught English to new Canadians through night school and, for many years afterward, was warmly greeted on the street by former students.

After their children had grown up and left the family home on 36A Street, Kay and Ross kept busy volunteering with their church and enjoying golf. When Ross retired in 1988, they travelled—often with relatives—to Hawaii, Texas, Great Britain, and Ireland. From the time they moved to Vernon in 1967 until 2012, they drove back across the mountains every summer to spend a few weeks visiting her brothers and sisters and their families in Calgary, Regina, and Wapella, as well as Ross's large family in Manitoba. Family was everything to her.

Then there were the grandchildren. She doted on every one of them. Tori lived in Vernon, while Molly, Ollie, and Leo lived in Victoria, and they visited often. Every winter from 1990 to 2018, Kay and Ross spent a month in Victoria, enjoying precious time with family.

Kay was a wonderful baker, an efficient homemaker, a sharp card player, a quick laugher, a competitive golfer, a dedicated volunteer, and, above all, a loving mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother.

Kay is lovingly remembered by her children, Allan (Leila), Carol (Phil), and Paul (Lisa); her grandchildren, Tori and her partner, Brent, and his son, Stetson; Molly; Ollie; Leo; Erin (daughter of Phil), her husband, Patrick, and their son, Eric; and her great-grandchild, Illi, daughter of Molly. She will also be fondly remembered by Susannah, Betty, and Forest, who remained cherished members of the extended family.

Her warmth, quiet strength, unwavering devotion to family, and ready laugh will remain with all who knew and loved her.