Marjorie Lilian Kevlahan, age 89, of West Vancouver, British Columbia died on Sunday, July 31, 2022 at the North Shore Hospice. Marjorie was born January 21, 1933 in Wolvey, Warwickshire England, the eldest of four children. Her parents, Walter and Ida (née Charles) Howe, were farmers. Marjorie's childhood was marked by World War II, and she vividly remembered watching dog fights in the bright blue skies while picking cherries in the summer of 1940 during the Battle of Britain.
Marjorie attended Nuneaton High School for girls and won a county scholarship to Leeds University, where she read Anglo Saxon History and Philology and wrote an undergraduate thesis on the dialect of her native area. Material from her thesis was incorporated into Harold Orton's pioneering Survey of English Dialects.
After five years working as a public librarian in Manchester, in 1960 she moved to Canada to take up a position at the Vancouver Public Library (VPL). In 1963 she married Andrew Kevlahan (they separated in 1989). After taking time off to raise her two children, Marjorie returned to VPL in 1988 and eventually became head of Special Collections (a heritage collection about British Columbia and the Northwest Coast). She retired from VPL in 1998.
Marjorie loved reading, gardening, animals, cooking (and good food!). Her beautiful cottage garden in West Vancouver was a source of pride and joy in her retirement.
A funeral service for Marjorie will be held Wednesday, August 24, 2022 from 10:00 AM at Christ Church Cathedral, 690 Burrard Street, Vancouver, BC, followed by a reception in the Park Room. Marjorie is survived by her sons Nicholas (Catherine Cox) and Christopher, her siblings Evelyn, Leslie and Gerald and grandchildren Paul and Charlotte. She will be greatly missed!
Fond memories and expressions of sympathy may be shared at www.hollyburnfunerals.com for the Kevlahan family.
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