Edna Isabel Dwyer

In 1951, at the age of 17, she left Northern Ireland and moved to London, where she worked for the famous Lyons cafés and tea shops. Two years later, in 1953, she took a job at the TMC, beginning a career in electronics at a time when the industry was still in its infancy. It was the beginning of a lifelong connection with technology and some of the most important developments of the twentieth century.

In 1956, she moved to Canada, where she joined Raytheon the following year. She remained with the company for more than three decades, from 1957 until her retirement in 1989. During those years, she worked her way through an extraordinary period of technological change, eventually contributing to the manufacture of components associated with the Apollo 11 mission that carried the first astronauts to the Moon.

After retiring, she settled in Victoria, British Columbia, where she discovered an entirely new passion: treasure hunting. She loved searching through thrift shops and finding jars and boxes filled with broken and forgotten jewelry. What others overlooked, she saw as an opportunity. She would bring the pieces home, repair and reassemble them, and sell them, becoming an entrepreneur in her own right.

It was a fitting second career for a woman who had always been resourceful, independent and curious. Whether working with early electronics, contributing to the technology of the space age, or turning discarded jewelry into something beautiful again, she had a remarkable ability to see possibilities where others did not.

She lived through an extraordinary period of history, from a farm in Northern Ireland in the 1930s to London in the postwar years, the birth of modern electronics, the space race and the Apollo era, and finally a creative and independent retirement on Vancouver Island.

Edna died in 2026, leaving behind a life that spanned continents, generations and some of the most remarkable technological changes of the modern age. She will be remembered for her independence, resourcefulness, curiosity, and determination to make her own way in the world.

She will be deeply missed by her son, two sisters, and many friends.